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ENCHANTERS  OF  MEN 


QVAE 
CAPVT      SALTANDO 
OBTINVIT 


^-^^^^^€ir^c^  ^yi^ 


ENCHANTERS 

OF   MEN 


BY 


ETHEL    COLBURN    MAYNE 


WITH    TWENTY-FOUR    ILLUSTRATIONS 


SECOND    EDITION 


METHUEN  &  CO. 

36  ESSEX  STREET  W.C. 

LONDON 


*;:i^ 


First  Published  .     .     May  6thy  igog 
Second  Edition igog 


PREFACE 

T^HIS  book  might  well  have  borne  as  sub-title,  A  Study 
in  Feminine  Magic,  since  the  women  who  illumine  its 
pages  are  alike  in  only  one  respect — that  each  was,  after  her 
fashion,  an  Enchanter  of  Men.  I  leave  to  my  readers  the 
decision  of  the  resulting  effect.  Is  it  reassuring  or  discoti- 
certing  to  the  sex  which  is  already  growing  somewhat  wearily 
sceptical  of  its  secular  incomprehensibility,  folly,  and  caprice  ? 
Does  it,  on  the  other  hand,  constitute  a  fresh  testimony,  or  a 
flat  denial,  to  the  equally  time-honoured  transparency,  common- 
sense,  and  stability  of  the  Male  ?  I  abjure  the  thorny  question. 
For  me,  the  effect  sums  itself  up  in  the  cri  de  coeur  of  a  naive 
friend :  "  Why  is  it  that  whenever  one's  nice,  the  other's 
horrid  ? "  To  accept  this  as  a  criticism  of  life  were  to  break 
the  heart  at  a  stroke.  We  will  treat  it  merely  as  a  criticism  of 
my  choice  of  fair,  frail,  fascinating — and  foreign,  ladies.  They 
are  nearly  all  foreign — "  and  that  makes  a  tremendous  differ- 
ence!' she  added, 

E.   C.   M. 
April,  1909. 


258426 


CONTENTS 


THE   ROYAL  MISTRESS 

PAGE 

DIANE  DE  POITIERS I 

BIANCA  CAPELLO l8 

GABRIELLE  D'ESTRI^ES 37 

MARIE  MANCINI $2 

LOLA  MONTEZ 67 


THE  COURTESAN 

TULLIA  D'ARAGONA 81 

I    NINON  DE  LENCLOS 95 

!    SOPHIE  ARNOULD lOQ 

) 

JEANNE   DU   BARRY I23 


THE   ROYAL  LADY 

HENRIETIE  D'ORL^ANS 139 

MARIE-ANTOINETTE 1 54 

MARIE-CAROLINE,  DUCHESSE  DE  BERRY 166 

PAULINE  BORGHESE 179 

LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG,  COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY 1 98 

vii 


viii  CONTENTS 

THE  STAR 

FAQE 

ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 215 

MARIA-FELICITA  GARCIA,  "  MALIBRAN " 228 

GIULIA  GRISI 241 

MARIE  TAGLIONl 252 

JENNY  LIND 263 

THE    "EGERIA" 

TERESA  GAMBA  GUICCIOLl                 379 

EVELINA  HANSKA 298 

MATHILDE  MIRAT  (MADAME  HEINE) 312 

ADAH  ISAACS  MENKEN 328 

INDEX 345 


LIST   OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


TULLIA  D'ARAGONA  {Photogravure) Frontispiece 

From  the  Pichire  by  Bonvicino,  in  the  Pinacoteca,  Brescia. 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

DIANE  DE  POITIERS l6 

From  a  Crayon  Drawing. 

BIANCA  CAPELLO 2$ 

From  the  Picture  by  A lessandro  Allori,  in  the  Uffizzi  Gallery^  Florence. 

GABRIELLE  D'ESTR^ES    . 4I 

From  a  Crayon  Drawing. 

HENRI   IV 42 

From  an  Engraving,  after  the  Pictitre  by  Francois  Porbus, 

MARIE  MANCINI,  PRINCESS  COLONNA 65 

From  the  Picture  by  Mignard,  in  the  Kaiser  Friederich  Museum^  Berlin. 

LOLA  MONTEZ 72 

From  the  Picture  by  Joseph  Stieler,  at  Munich. 

NINON  DE  LENCLOS 98 

From  a  Miniature  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 

SOPHIE  ARNOULD -113 

From  the  Picture  by  Greuze,  in  the  Wallace  Collection,  London, 

JEANNE   DU   BARRY 128 

From  an  Engraving,  after  the  Miniature  by  Richard  Cosway. 

HENRIETTE  D'ORL^IANS 139 

From  an  Engraving  by  Jos.  Brown, 

MARIE-ANTOINETTE 164 

From  the  Picture  by  Madame  Vigie  Lebrun,  at  Versailles, 

MARIE-CAROLINE,    DUCHESSE  DE   BERRY 168 

From  an  Engraving,  after  the  Picture  by  Hesse. 

PAULINE  BONAPARTE,   PRINCESS   BORGHESE 1 84 

From  the  Statue  by  Canova  ("  Venus  Vincitrix")  in  the  Villa  Borghese,  Rome. 

PRINCESS   LOUISE  OF  STOLBERG,   COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY      .  .  .      2CX> 

From  an  Engraving  by  W.  Read,  after  tJic  Picture  by  Ozias  Humphry,  R,A. 

ix 


X  LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR 221 

From  Brevet's  Engraving  of  the  lost  Picture  by  Coypel. 

MARIA-FELICITA  GARCIA,   "  MALIBRAN " 234 

From  a  Litlwgraph,  after  the  Drawing  by  H.  Grevedon. 

GIULIA  GRISI 245 

From  an  Engraving,  after  the  Picture  by  A.  E.  Chalon,  R.A. 

MARIE  TAGLIONI 253 

From  an  Engraving,  after  the  Drawing  by  H.  Grevedon. 

JENNY   LIND 269 

Frotn  the  Painting  by  Eduard  Magnus,  in  the  National  Gallery,  Berlin, 

BYRON 284 

From  an  Engraving  by  Henry  Linton,  after  the  Picture  by  Harlow. 

TERESA  GAMBA  GUICCIOLI 289 

From  an  Engraving  by  J.  Thomson,  after  tfie  Picture  by  A.  E.  Chalon,  R.A. 

EVELINA  HANSKA 308 

From  a  Bust  in  the  possession  of  M.  Laprei,  Paris. 

MATHILDE  MIRAT  (MADAME  HEINE) 318 

From  a  Photograph  lent  by  Mr.  W.  Heinemann. 


THE  ROYAL  MISTRESS 


DIANE  DE  POITIERS 

1499-1566 

DIANE  DE  POITIERS!  The  sound  seems  to  have 
haunted  our  childhood.  "  //  respire  comme  un  parfum 
de  beauU^  d'aristocratie^  et  de  puissance  " — and  its  owner 
appreciated  it  to  the  very  last  letter.  Never  was  Christian  name 
so  exploited  before  !  France,  indeed,  during  the  period  of  Diane's 
ascendency,  fell  into  a  condition  of  partial  moonlessness,  for  the 
crescent  was  the  only  recognized  phase.  New  moons  decorated 
everything — Diana,  "Goddess  excellently  bright,"  appeared 
round  every  corner :  "  half-hidden,  she  seemed  merely  to  await 
her  comrades  before  flinging  herself  headlong  into  the  pursuit  of 
the  deer  and  the  wild  boar." 

She  was  born  on  September  5th,  1499,  the  daughter  of  Jehan 
de  Poitiers,  Sire  de  Saint- Vallier,  and  Jehanne  de  Baternay,  his 
wife.  Her  very  childhood  was  Dianic.  At  six,  she  rode  and 
hunted  with  her  father ;  at  ten,  she  was  promised  in  marriage  to 
Louis  de  Brezd,  Grand-Seneschal  of  Normandy,*  also  a  hunting- 
man — and  a  further  blazon  was  added  to  the  felicitous  name. 

"  Madame  Dame  Diane  de  Poitiers,  Grande-Sen^schale  de 
Normandie  "  :  it  sounded  well,  but  it  did  not  look  so  well  as  it 
sounded,  for  Br^z^  was  one  of  the  ugliest  men  of  his  time.  He 
had  a  hump  ;  and  he  was  thirty  years  older  than  his  bride,  when 
the  marriage  took  place  in  1 5 1 5 — Diane  being  then  fifteen,  and 
he,  forty-three.     "  Marriage,"  in  those  days,  "  was  a  transaction, 

♦  He  was  descended  illegitimately  from  King  Charles  VIII.,  his  mother 
being  a  daughter  of  Agnes  Sorel. 


^    .  .  DIANE  DE  POITIERS 

a  business-partnership  ...  it  excluded  every  idea  of  personal 
fancy  ;  indeed,  of  all  the  contracts  of  life,  marriage  was  the  least 
tolerant  of  any  such  notion.  Its  traditional  character  as  a 
business-affair  no  one  would  have  dreamed  of  contesting."  * 

Diane  accepted  marriage  in  that  guise  for  nine  years,  and 
presented  the  Grand-Seneschal  with  two  daughters  ;  then  began 
the  movement  and  the  change.  She  came  to  Court  in  the  train 
of  Louise  of  Savoy,  mother  of  Francis  I. ;  and  the  French  Court 
at  that  time  was  something  like  a  Court  to  come  to  ! 

The  reign  of  Francis  was  the  last  reflection  of  the  age  of 
chivalry.  The  flower  of  French  knighthood  surrounded  him — 
names  which  thrill  us  even  now  as  we  read.  La  Tr^mouille  ; 
Chabannes,  Seigneur  de  la  Palisse  ;  Pierre  de  Terrail — otherwise 
the  Chevalier  Bayard  ;  Anne  de  Montmorency  (as  what  a 
perfect  masculine  appellation  does  "  Anne  "  suddenly  strike  us ! ), 
Gaston  de  Foix,  Lautrec.  .  .  .  Beautiful  names,  as  beautiful  as 
her  own — bravery,  brilliancy,  ancient  and  glorious  lineage,  are 
implicit  in  every  one  ;  and  she,  who  had  so  fine  an  ear  for  that 
kind  of  thing,  dated  perhaps  her  championship  of  old  chivalric 
ways  as  against  the  new  scholarly  and  philosophical  dissensions, 
from  the  moment  in  which  those  exquisite  syllables  first  en- 
thralled her  hearing. 

When,  in  1533,  her  husband  died  and  she  began  the  career 
of  magnificent  mistress,  it  was  as  the  result  of  a  long-pondered, 
subtly-devised  scheme  of  conquest.  After  the  Peace  of  Cambrai, 
(1528)  the  two  Royal  children,  Francis  the  Dauphin,  and  Henry, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  were  liberated  from  durance  in  Spain  as 
hostages  for  French  good  behaviour.  Francis  and  the  Court 
met  them  at  Bayonne  ;  at  Bordeaux  and  Amboise  there  were 
feasts  and  tournaments  to  celebrate  the  King's  marriage  with 
Eleonore,  widowed  Queen  of  Portugal,  and  sister  of  Charles  V. 
The  young  Duke  of  Orleans  there  broke  his  first  lance  in  honour 
of  Diane,  who  was  thirty-one.  A  tender  scene  had  already  taken 
place  between  them.  At  Bayonne,  the  Grande-S^n^schale  had 
drawn  him  to  her  and  put  her  arms  around  him,  mother-wise. 
All  the  emotion  of  the  moment  was  in  the  lad's  heart :  the 
return  to  France  (and  what  does  not  that  mean  to  a  Frenchman  !  ), 
*  R.  de  Maulde  la  Clavi^re.    Les  Femmes  de  la  Rettaissance, 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  S 

the  remembrance  of  trouble  proudly  borne,  the  feeling  of  loneli- 
ness— for  had  not  his  father  always  favoured  his  elder  brother  ? 
"  I  don't  care  for  dreamy,  sullen,  sleepy  children,"  he  had  said, 
speaking  of  his  second  son.  .  .  .  And  now,  the  sensitive  child  was 
drawn  into  these  beautiful,  sheltering  arms  !  He  began  from  that 
hour  the  dream  which  ended  only  with  his  life.  He  was  never 
away  from  her  afterwards.  "  It  was  even  said  that  the  little  Eros 
which  Primaticcio  placed  beside  Diane  in  his  admirable  portrait, 
was  drawn  from  Henry." 

Seventeen  years  between  them — and  a  superstitious  time  : 
to  what  was  this  infatuation  sure  to  be  attributed  ?  To  witchcraft 
— envozUement:  "we  are  not  in  a  real  world,"  says  picturesque 
Michelet.  But  it  was  very  real  indeed  to  Diane  de  Poitiers. 
Even  her  magic,  her  sorceries,  were  positive.  That  "  mysterious 
and  sinister  beauty"  was  preserved  by  the  simplest,  the  most 
practical  means  :  an  active,  healthy  life  !  She  used  to  get  up  at 
5  a.m.  and  take  a  cold  bath.  That  in  itself  was  then  a  marvel. 
Personal  cleanliness  was  rare ;  the  fame  of  her  morning-baths 
has  come  down  to  us  through  the  centuries  in  many  a  naive, 
astounded  page.  To  make  such  eccentricity  credible,  the  only 
way  was  to  add  a  further  touch  of  the  amazing — hence  she  was 
said  to  bathe  in  cold  water  filled  with  crushed  gold.  .  .  .  After 
the  legendary  "  tub,"  Diane  would  ride,  would  hunt  for  two  or 
three  hours,  then  would  come  back  and  go  to  bed,  where  she 
would  spend  the  morning,  reading  the  romances  of  the  time — the 
chivalric  romances  above  all — besides  books  of  astrology  of 
history.  "  Her  meals  were  light  but  substantial."  It  was  a 
regime,  in  short,  and  no  sorcery  at  all ;  and  Guiffry  *  is  con- 
cerned to  prove  to  us  not  only  that  this  was  so,  but  that  her 
beauty  was  a  very  debatable  question.  We  must  turn,  for  the 
truth  about  it,  away  from  what  he  calls  the  mythological  group, 
to  the  historic  one — "the  human  Diane,  the  Diane  of  this 
grovelling  world  " ;  and  among  these  images  we  shall  not  find 
that  impression  of  divine  beauty,  of  superhuman  grace,  which 
reigns  in  the  other  section.  She  had  a  brilliant  complexion,  and 
her  cold-water  rigime  enhanced  it ;  for  the  rest,  the  distinctive 
character  of  her  aspect  was  health,  not  loveliness.  She  had 
*  The  undisputed  expert  on  her  history. 


4  DIANE   DE    POITIERS 

broad  shoulders,  an  opulent  throat,  "  the  flesh  enriched  by  pulsing 
blood  "...  and  Henry,  who  lost  his  head  so  entirely  about  her 
in  everything  else,  seems  not  at  first  to  have  deceived  either 
himself  or  her  on  this  point.  *'  Non  la  beaute — qui  un  leger 
courage  Pent  ^mouvoir — tant  que  vous  pent  me  plaire,"  he  wrote 
to  her  in  the  quite  early  days,  and  no  doubt  the  ambiguous 
compliment  was  as  dubiously  welcome  as  it  would  be  to  any 
other  woman.  Perhaps  it  incited  her  to  that  multiplication  of 
her  image,  that  loud  tradition  of  her  beauty,  which  she  exacted 
in  her  magnificent  days  from  her  sculptors  and  her  poets. 

Party-feeling  had  something  to  do  with  Diane's  relation  to 
the  young  Prince.  France  was  in  a  transition-state.  Calvinism 
was  rampant ;  the  country  was  hopelessly  divided.  The  Duchesse 
d'Etampes,  that  powerful  mistress  of  Francis  I.,  protected  the 
"half-Huguenot"  party,  and  gave  shelter  to  the  philosophers 
and  scholars — the  upholders  of  classical  learning  ;  Diane,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  for  the  old  ways,  the  ways  of  the  Middle  Ages  : 
"  that  great  civilization,  which  had  its  own  art,  its  own  faith,  its 
epic  poems,  its  heroes."  Her  favourite  book  was  the  Roman 
de  la  Ros^y  that  superb  chivalric  romance,  "  oti  tout  est  en  dehors 
dtt possible'* ;  hence  she  was  wedded  to  the  Catholic  faith,  for  she 
considered  that  that  faith  stirred  up  and  encouraged  chivalry. 
She  was  bigoted,  too,  while  most  of  the  women  around  her  were 
tolerant.  Marguerite  de  Valois,  the  sister  of  the  King,  for  this 
reason  did  not  love  Diane  ;  her  wide,  philosophical  mind  was 
incapable  of  bigotry,  her  sensitive  spirit  shrank  from  the  horrors 
of  the  time — for  the  persecution  of  the  Huguenots  was  now 
beginning.  .  .  .  But  the  Reformation  never  took,  never  could 
have  taken,  firm  root  in  France ;  and  with  its  long  train  of 
dissensions,  persecutions,  and  useless  hideous  tragedies,  it 
annihilated  diplomatic  action,  and  spoilt  the  brilliant  future  of 
the  country  for  many  years  to  come. 

Diane  de  Poitiers,  that  most  capable  thinker  and  ardent 
Frenchwoman,  no  doubt  saw  and  felt  this  profoundly ;  but 
there  is  ever  a  personal  motive  with  women,  and  that  was 
supplied  for  her  by  her  rivalry  with  the  Royal  mistress.  This 
lady  was  not  quite  pretty,  but  she  was  divinely  fresh — oddly, 
in  that,  resembling  her  rival  j  and  the  resemblance  went  further, 


DIANE   DE  POITIERS  5 

for  she  also  was  an  intrepid  huntress.  A  cold,  capricious  woman, 
jealous  and  vindictive,  she  hated  Diane  with  all  the  force  of  her 
being.  She  was  several  years  younger  than  the  Grande-Senes- 
chale,  and  she  found  a  rending  phrase  to  mark  the  difference. 
"  J'etais  nh  le  vieme  jour  que  Madame  la  Senhchale  s'est 
marieey  Unforgivable — and  unforgiven,  as  we  shall  see.  She 
had  another  weapon  to  hand  in  the  shape  of  a  Court  poet,  the 
famous  Clement  Marot.  This  gentleman  had  such  leanings 
towards  Calvinism  as  suited  with  an  easy,  pleasure-loving  tem- 
perament, evasive  of  fast  and  penance,  and  with  an  exquisite 
knack  of  turning  the  Psalms  of  David  into  verse.  The  Duchesse 
d'Etampes  encouraged  him  to  satirize  the  Grande-Seneschale* 
to  make  epigrams  upon  her  "obsolete  coquetries,"  her  rouge, 
her  false  teeth,  false  hair.  .  .  .  Calumnies  all,  for  powders  and 
pomades  were  unknown  to  Diane,  and  paint  she  utterly 
despised.  The  epigrams  annoyed  her,  nevertheless;  and  when 
Marot  did  the  subtlest  thing  of  his  life,  and  wrote  that  spiteful, 
dainty  stanza —         f 

"  Que  voulez-vous,  Diane  bonne, 
Que  vous  donne  ? 
Vous  n'eustes,  comme  j'entends, 
\  Jamais  tant  d'heur  au  printemps 

Qu'en  autonne  " — 

the  cleverly  insulted  lady  registered  the  affront  as  one  to  be 
paid  back  to  the  poet's  patroness  when  the  day  should  come 
— as  come  it  did,  with  its  vengeance.  .  .  .  Thus  both  intellect 
and  enmity  impelled  her  to  that  close  alliance  with  the  Guises 
and  the  Montmorencys,  which  later  on  brought  France  into  such 
seas  of  trouble. 

It  was  during  the  captivity  of  Francis  I.  at  Madrid  that  the 
power  of  the  House  of  Lorraine  began.  Frangois,  Comte  de 
Guise — afterwards  Due  de  Guise,  by  Diane's  influence — was  "  the 
proudest  and  bravest  feudal  noble  that  ever  was."  Paris  used 
periodically  to  go  mad  about  him,  and  as  he  won  back  Calais  for 
France  in  1552 — thus  effacing  the  last  trace  of  Edward  III.  of 
England's  conquests — we  can  hardly  wonder  if  in  that  year  Paris 
wore  the  cap  and  bells.  He  was  very  unlike  his  baneful  brother, 
Charles,  Cardinal    de   Lorraine,  "  whose   ambition   was   to   set 


6  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

households  by  the  ears  all  over  France."  That  often  seems,  to 
the  profane,  to  have  been  the  ambition  of  every  Cardinal  in 
those  days.  No  sooner  does  a  Prince  of  the  Church  arrive  upon 
the  scene — and  no  scene  was  ever  long  without  one — than  every 
kind  of  trouble  arrives  too.  The  word  "  Cardinal "  is  a  veritable 
stormy  petrel. 

Anne  de  Montmorency,  Diane's  other  ally,  was  not  so  much 
the  expression  of  Roman  Catholicism,  as  of  high-and-dry 
feudalism.  She  quarrelled  with  him  in  after  years — he  was 
Catherine  de*  Medici's  bosom  friend — and  though,  at  Henry's 
request,  she  made  a  partial  reconciliation,  they  were  never 
really  anything  but  hostile  all  the  rest  of  their  lives. 

In^  i533>  Madame  la  Grande-Seneschale  became  a  widow. 
She  altered  her  colours  from  green-and-white  to  black-and-white, 
and  Henry  wore  the  sombre  livery  of  her  mourning  all  the  rest 
of  his  life.  The  comicality  of  this  is  irresistible.  It  is  Platonism 
again  :  that  amusing,  pliant  theory,  which  translated  itself  with 
such  facility  into  every  kind  of  practice ! 

The  year  was  a  memorable  one  for  Henry.  Diane,  a  widow ; 
his  brother,  the  Dauphin,  dead  ;  he  himself,  now  Dauphin,  married 
— all  in  1533.  What  manner  of  man  was  he,  whom  Diane  de 
Poitiers  governed  ? 

"  He  had  neither  the  vivacity  nor  the  capacity  of  his  father, 
but  he  had  his  own  peculiar  charm,"  says  Theodore  de  Beze ; 
"  more  like  his  maternal  ancestor,  Louis  XII.,  than  like  Francis 
I.,  he  seemed  born  to  be  governed,  not  to  govern."  Until  his 
father's  death,  in  1547,  it  may  be  said  that  no  one  knew  what 
Henry  was,  except  Diane  de  Poitiers.  It  was  she  who  revealed 
him  to  himself.  Silent,  morose,  sensitive,  ill-at-ease,  she  found 
him  ;  she  made  him  into  a  lover,  a  poet,  and  a  king.  He  leant 
upon  her  absolutely  ;  even  in  public,  he  never  made  a  decision 
without  first  glancing  at  her  for  counsel ;  and  she  influenced  him 
not  by  her  sagacity  alone,  but  by  her  versatile  knowledge,  her 
power  of  understanding  life  at  every  point,  and  of  using  her 
comprehension  to  the  best  advantage. 

At  twenty-three,  Henry  was  "  passing  comely."  "  He  has 
vivid  black  eyes,  a  big  nose,  a  rather  common  mouth,  and  a 
pointed  beard  of  two  fingers'  length :  the  whole  ensemble  of  his 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  7 

countenance  is  extraordinarily  winning."  "  Neither  stout  nor 
thin,  well-knit,  one  would  think  he  was  all  made  of  muscle.  .  .  . 
Rarely  doth  he  laugh,  or  give  sign  of  laughter."  At  twenty- 
eight,  Marino  Cavalli  reports  that  he  is  "  robust,  melancholic,  well 
skilled  in  the  use  of  arms.  No  beau-diseur  in  repartees,  but  most 
clear-cut  and  firm  in  his  opinions.  Intelligence  not  of  the 
readiest,  and  yet  it  is  such  men  as  he  who  often  succeed  best." 
"  Gentle,  facile,  and  reserved  ;  brave  and  warlike,  loving  horses, 
the  7V//  de paume,  hunting,  skating"  .  .  .  altogether,  a  man  who 
counted,  an  attractive,  lovable  man,  and  one  to  whom  the  dual 
destiny  of  many  men  arrived — that  of  being  dominated  by  the 
woman  he  loved,  while  the  woman  who  loved  him  was  afraid  of  him. 

Catherine  de'  Medici,  whom  he  married  in  October,  1533, 
never  won  him  for  a  moment  away  from  Diane.  She  did  not 
try.  Directly  she  came  to  France,  she  saw  how  matters  stood  ;  * 
and  inured  though  women  were  to  the  institution  by  the  husband 
oi  la  dame  de  ses  pensees,  the  strange,  imperturbable  Florentine 
lady  found  it  wounding  almost  to  the  limits  of  endurance.  But 
she  did  endure  it — in  that  subtle  silence  which  was  her  way  of 
being  proud.  The  thing  was  not  to  be  altered.  No  finger  of  hers, 
then,  should  be  guilty  of  the  blunder  of  putting  itself  in  contact 
with  the  immovable.  Suffer  while  she  must,  and  above  all  suffer 
silently  ;  avenge  when  she  can,  with  no  futile  hurry  towards  the 
glorious  hour — but  with  it,  avenge  quickly  ! . . .  Indifferent  she  has 
been  called  :  it  is  the  blunder  of  a  shallow  psychologist.  Such 
pride  as  hers  is  often  thus  misread.  Gentleness  was  her  armour, 
an  exquisite  gentleness,  a  "  supreme  elegance  " — hiding  a  force  of 
patience  and  of  hatred  as  great  as  ever  jealous  woman  knew 
She  set  one  definite  goal  before  herself  at  this  time — the  winning 
of  her  father-in-law's  affection.  And  she  won  it  entirely.  Francis 
I.  adored  her.  He  enrolled  her  in  his  Petite  Bande,  that  troop 
of  pretty  women  who  hunted  with  him,  dined  with  him,  talked 
with  him,  led  by  the  Duchesse  d'Etampes,  from  the  first  an  ally 
of  the  neglected  wife.  Marguerite  de  Valois,  too,  was  good  to 
her — Marguerite  did  not  love  the  much-advertised  Diane. 

There  is  a  letter  written  by  Catherine  in  after  years  to  her 

*  With  a  poignant  irony,  her  marriage  settlement  was  drawn  up  at  Anet, 
where  Francis  I.  was  staying  with  Diane. 


8  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

daughter,  Elizabeth  of  Spain,  which  reveals  something  of  her 
silent  anguish  at  this  time.  "  I  was  not  loved  in  the  way  I 
wished  by  the  King  your  father,  who  doubtless  honoured  me 
beyond  my  deserts ;  but  I  loved  him  so  much  that  I  was  always 
afraid  of  him,  as  you  know  quite  well."  And  before  that  she 
had  for  once  shown  her  heart  in  a  letter  to  the  Constable  de 
Montmorency,  that  ally  whom  Diane  drew  away  from  her  for  a 
period,  and  whom  Catherine  never  rested  until  she  got  back.  "  It 
was  not  the  water  that  made  me  ill,  so  much  as  not  having  had 
any  news  of  the  King.  ...  I  know  full  well  that  I  must  not 
have  the  happiness  of  being  near  him — which  makes  me  wish 
that  you  had  my  place  and  I  yours  so  long  as  the  war  lasts." 
Truly  it  was  a  mistake  for  a  woman  in  those  days  "  to  mix  up 
the  idea  of  love  with  marriage  !  " 

Catherine  was  eighteen,  and  Diane  was  thirty-five — Henry 
only  a  little  older  than  his  wife.  The  young  girl  might  well 
have  hoped  to  conquer  easily,  but,  astute  and  subtle  as  she  was, 
she  probably  saw  deep  into  that  enduring  problem — the  spell  of 
the  older  woman  over  a  man's  heart.  Henry  was  of  the  type 
which  is  susceptible  of  the  maturer  magic,  and  the  spirit  of  the 
age  was  with  him.  Not  often  was  the  discrepancy  so  great  as 
between  him  and  his  mistress,  but  in  Platonic  relations  the 
woman  was  the  more  frequently  a  little  the  senior  of  the  man. 
Catherine  no  doubt  poignantly  comprehended  it  all.  .  .  .  We 
may  see  her,  mysterious,  "supremely  elegant,"  in  the  Porbus 
portrait  which  hangs  between  the  Pitti  Palace  and  the  Uffizzi  at 
Florence :  "  robed  in  rose-coloured  satin,  sewn  with  pearls,  a 
black  train  streaming  behind,  a  great  jewel  glowing  at  her 
breast " — a  woman  of  thirty,  with  her  tragic  love-story  behind 
her. 

In  1543,  as  she  had  had  no  children,  Francis  meditated  her 
divorce  from  the  Dauphin.  Catherine  heard  of  it,  and,  always 
in  her  role  of  gentle  effacement  towards  the  Royal  family  of 
France,  she  went  to  him  in  tears  (she  knew  he  would  do  any- 
thing to  dry  them !),  and  said  that  she  had  heard  of  his  intention, 
and  would  sacrifice  herself  for  the  good  of  the  country — would 
retire  to  a  convent  or  remain  in  his  service,  as  he  pleased.     He 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  9 

was  melted  at  once.  "  My  daughter,  have  no  doubt,  since  God 
hath  willed  it,  that  you  ought  to  be  my  daughter-in-law — and 
that  I  would  not  have  it  otherwise."  They  both  got  their 
reward,  for  a  year  afterwards  a  son  was  born  ;  and  between  that 
time  and  1555,  she  presented  Henry  with  ten  children. 

In  1547,  Francis  died,  and  Henry  was  King.  Diane,  now 
Duchesse  de  Valentinois,  arrived  at  Saint  Germain.  Her  first 
act  was  to  dismiss  the  Duchesse  d'Etampes  from  Court.  At 
last  she  was  revenged  for  the  famous  phrase,  for  Marot's  intol- 
erable stanza !  .  .  .  The  Duchesse  died  a  good  Protestant, 
chanting,  no  doubt,  the  once  fashionable  Psalms  to  the  end. 

All  sorts  of  changes  now  took  place.  The  King's  Council 
was  remodelled  :  Guises  were  everywhere.  The  Calvinists  were 
in  dire  alarm,  and  with  reason,  for  the  Duchesse  de  Valentinois 
instituted  repressive  measures  at  once.  In  1 549,  Henry  publicly 
took  a  vow  to  exterminate  all  Huguenots  ;  and,  incidentally, 
Diane  came  in  for  an  unpleasant  encounter.  A  poor  journey- 
man tailor  was  arrested  as  a  heretic  and  brought  before  the 
King,  who,  it  was  thought,  would  be  diverted  by  his  confusion 
and  simplicity.  But  he  bore  himself  with  perfect  composure  and 
even  dignity.  Diane,  wishing  to  take  part  in  the  discussion, 
asked  some  question,  but  the  "  heretic,"  turning  quickly,  said  to 
her :  "  Madame,  be  satisfied  with  having  poisoned  France,  and 
do  not  mingle  your  infamy  with  anything  so  sacred  as  God's 
truth."  This  was  disconcerting.  The  lady  said  nothing,  neither 
did  any  one  else.  "  But  some  days  afterwards,  the  Duchesse  de 
Valentinois  went  with  the  King  to  enjoy  the  pastime  of  seeing 
the  tailor  burn  at  the  Porte-Saint-Antoine."  .  .  .  Truly,  in  the 
words  of  Imbert  de  Saint- Amand :  "One  would  say  that 
humanity,  instead  of  kneeling  before  the  Christ,  had  made  a 
mistake  in  the  Cross,  and  was  adoring  the  evil-doer  who  hung 
beside  him." 

The  great  mistress  was  now  at  the  height  of  her  magnificence 
and  renown.  She  was  a  superb  art-patron  ;  but  she  was  no 
greater  in  that  respect  than  Catherine  de'  Medici,  though  she 
was  much  more  advertised.  One  was  purely  Florentine,  the 
other  purely  French,  in  tendency.  The  artists  who  worked  for 
Diane  were  mostly  her  own  countrymen.     Germain  Pilon  ;  Jean 


10  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

Goujon,  lyricist  in  stone ;  Philibert  Delorme,  architect  and  iron- 
worker, the  designer  of  the  famous  spiral  staircase  ;  Bernard 
Palissy,  divine  artist  in  pottery  ;  the  Limousin  brothers,  with 
their  wondrous  enamels  ;  Jean  Cousin,  stained-glass  worker,  who 
filled  the  windows  of  her  Palace  with  glory — these  were  her 
special  favourites  ;  but  she  patronized,  among  the  Italians, 
Primaticcio,  Del  Rosso,  and  Benvenuto  Cellini,  who  found  in 
her  form  "  a  symbol  of  the  Absolute  in  Beauty."  Her  adored 
image  was  everywhere,  invested  with  an  immortality  of  youth, 
beauty,  and  superhuman  grace.  Anet,  the  palace  which  she 
built  on  the  de  Breze  territory,  was  a  veritable  Earthly  Paradise, 
"  the  nonpareil  of  houses  " — Dianet,  as  Ronsard,  her  special  poet, 
wittily  and  unforgettably  named  it. 

What  a  zenith  for  a  woman  of  forty-eight !  The  King  was 
her  slave,  the  courtiers  her  creatures  :  she  was  the  King's  Queen. 
The  Royal  Treasury  was  hers  to  plunder — and  she  plundered  it 
as  thoroughly  well  as  she  did  everything  else.  All  her  arrange- 
ments were  sumptuous  :  no  one  had  such  hunting-parties,  stables, 
kennels,  dinners.  Think  of  her  dinner-table — priceless  glass, 
dinner-service  by  Benvenuto  Cellini,  Palissy's  vases  and  dishes ! 
Capefigue  tells  us  of  the  furnishing  of  Anet.  "  It  was  art 
carried  to  an  extreme  point  of  severe  elegance.  The  furniture 
was  of  ebony  and  ivory  ;  the  hangings  were  in  yellow  embossed 
leather,  the  sideboards  in  carved  wood,  reproducing  hunting- 
scenes  in  raised  gold.  The  carpets  were  Eastern  ;  there  were 
dim  Venetian  mirrors — in  the  galleries  were  paintings,  pottery, 
enamels ;  the  chimney-pieces  had  that  perfection  of  size  and 
proportion  which  made  them  like  monuments."  .  .  .  How  one 
seems  to  see  the  superb,  glowing  place !  The  King  is  there,  in 
his  doublet  of  white  embroidered  with  two  golden  crescents,  and 
the  "  D.H."  interlaced  in  their  famous  cypher  (two  D's  back  to 
back  which  formed  an  H  in  the  centre,  and  were  bound  together 
by  a  loop  called  le  lac  d^amotir),  a  short  black-velvet  cloak,  a 
black-velvet  cap,  decorated  with  one  long  feather  .  .  .  her 
livery ! 

"  Plus  ferme  foy  ne  fut  oncques  jurde 
A  nouveau  prince,  6  ma  seule  Princesse  I " 

"  Rest  assured  that  thou  shalt  never  feel  ashamed  of  giving  me 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  11 

the  name  of  thy  servant.  Let  this  be  my  title  for  ever."  "  I 
cannot  live  without  thee."  "  Remember  him  who  has  never 
loved,  will  never  love,  any  one  but  thee."  .  .  .  This  lover  truly 
lived  in  dreams — when  we  think  of  him,  we  echo  Michejet 
without  hesitation  :  "  Notts  ne  sommespas  dans  tm  monde  naturel." 

But  once  turn  to  the  inspirer  of  it  all,  and  reality,  actuality, 
are  with  us  at  a  bound.  Not  the  legendary  nymph  of  the  statues 
and  pictures,  but  the  cool,  capable  organizer  of  the  whole 
amazing  legend  is  what  we  perceive.  Things— rare,  exqui- 
site, but  always  things — come  into  our  minds  with  her  name. 
Anet,  Chenonceaux — bronzes,  statues,  medallions  :  Tangible  Art, 
that  is  what  she  stands  for.  Even  pictures  seem  a  little  too 
transcendental.  Poetry,  despite  Ronsard  and  Dianet — poetry 
and  she  have  no  real  connection.  Music  one  cannot  think  of — 
though  she  heard  much  music,  for  Henry  passionately  loved  it. 
Never  did  tradition  alter  so  amazingly  with  fuller  knowledge. 
"She  loved  beautiful  things,  but  she  loved  money  before  all 
else."  .  .  .  The  most  actual  of  women — how  did  she  contrive  to 
keep  a  man  in  a  life-long  trance  ?  If  a  proof  of  the  intoxicating 
power  of  Art  were  wanting,  here  is  one.  She  surrounded  him 
with  the  consummate,  he  saw  loveliness  wherever  he  turned  ; 
drunk  with  beauty  we  might  say  he  was — dizzy  in  the  rarefied 
atmosphere  of  its  topmost  heights  ! 

This  was  genius ;  and  the  greater,  because  among  the  other 
arts,  she  never  forgot  the  Art  of  Life.  She  amused  as  well  as 
dazzled  him.  His  enervated  nature  needed  a  continual  spur  ; 
thus,  she  was  not  content  with  making  him  fall  in  love — she 
plunged  him  in  *'  a  perpetual  state  of  ecstasy."  .  .  .  Her  expendi- 
ture was  enormous,  but  the  Royal  Treasury  paid ;  and  she  had 
other  ways  and  means  as  well.  She  levied  taxes  on  everything 
she  could  in  her  own  domain :  one,  very  profitable,  was  on  the 
bread-baking  ovens  in  the  town.  Fines  also  she  instituted  :  if 
a  Jew  trod  her  ground,  he  paid  twelve  deniers  for  the  desecra- 
tion !  Gifts  of  all  sorts  were  exacted.  Vieilleville,  one  of  the 
Marshals  of  France,  had  to  give  from  an  Abbey  he  came  in  for, 
"table-  and  bed-linen,  very  fine  and  rich,  for  it  came  from 
Flanders — so  it  had  to  go  to  Madame  de  Valentinois,  who 
esteemed   it   highly,   as   being   a   very   rare    thing."       It  was 


12  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

only  with  difficulty  that  Vieilleville  had  got  his  Abbey  at  all : 
"  d  vive  force,  et,  comme  Von  diet,  son  corps  deffeitdant,  le  Roy 
fict  cette  avantaige  d  M,  de  Vieilleville^  Henry  was  obliged, 
indeed,  to  tell  some  lies  about  it,  so  as  "  to  escape  the  insatiable 
avidity  of  those  three  harpies'" — the  harpies  being  the  Constable 
Montmorency,  the  Marshal  Saint- Andre,  and  Madame  de  Valen- 
tinois — "who,  all  the  morning,  had  (unknown  to  one  another) 
pursued,  importuned,  and  hag-ridden  (chevale)  His  Majesty  so 
as  to  snap  up  this  benefice."  Saint-Andre,  for  that  matter, 
had  had  his  own  troubles  of  the  same  sort.  When  he  had 
applied  for  a  vacant  Marshalship,  Diane  had  fought  him  tooth 
and  nail.  She  wanted  the  post  for  her  son-in-law,  and  she 
told  the  King  that  if  she  did  not  get  it,  she  would  leave  the 
kingdom.  "  Et  tant  d' autre  langaige  !  "  as  poor  Saint- Andre 
said  miserably  to  his  friend  Vieilleville.  He  was  downcast  at 
the  opposition  of  the  dread  lady,  since  "  de  la  ntalconte?tter,  le 
Roy  ne  voudroit  pour  rien  V entreprendre  "  ;  and  Vieilleville  gave 
him  little  hope,  advised  him,  on  the  contrary,  to  abandon  hope 
at  once,  for  if  he  went  on,  he  would  be  putting  himself  "  entre 
Vongle  et  la  chair"  The  metaphor  had  force.  Saint-Andre 
decided  to  wait  for  his  Marshalship  ! 

It  is  clear  from  all  this  that  Diane  was  unpopular.  Henry 
was  "  excused  "  :  his  people  were  indulgently  fond  of  him. 

"  Le  peuple  excuse  Henri,  *^ 

M audit  Montmorenci, 

Hait  Diane, 
Surtout  ceux  de  Guise  aussi." 

The  long  magnanimity  of  the  injured  Queen  was  gaining 
her  sympathy,  though  the  courtiers  and  even  the  people  still 
acquiesced  in  the  official  scandal.  All  the  towns  of  the 
kingdom,  when  the  King  visited  them,  raised  triumphal  arches 
whereon  the  symbolic  cypher  of  the  Duchesse  de  Valentinois 
shone  beside  the  Royal  one.  Even  at  Catherine's  coronation, 
it  appeared.  How  the  wife  must  have  loathed  the  sight  of  it ! 
She  had  verily  a  hard  ordeal — for  Diane  forced  an  intimacy 
upon  her  with  that  deadly  resolution  which  she  used  in  all 
things.  It  was  a  triangle — "  and  the  mistress  formed  in  some 
sort  the  apex  of  it."     Her  influence  actually  extended  to  the 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  13 

alcove  ;  Contarini,  in  one  of  his  inimitable  despatches,  wrote 
that  "the  Queen  is  continually  with  the  Duchess,  who,  on  her 
side,  does  her  many  a  good  turn  with  the  King — et  soiLvent  dest 
elk  qui  Vexhorte  d  alter  dormir  aupres  de  la  Reined  Even 
more  extraordinary  is  the  intervention  of  the  mistress  with  the 
Royal  children.  Diane  was  the  "  tutelary  genius  of  the  family." 
She  presided  at  the  births,  she  chose  the  nurses,  fixed  the  time 
for  weaning,  recommended  the  medicines — in  a  word,  managed 
everything. 

So,  for  thirteen  years,  the  strange  three-sided  life  went  on. 
Everywhere  the  "  D  and  H,"  everywhere  the  Goddess  Dian  and 
the  crescent  moon — and  that  dark  mysterious  lady,  Catherine 
the  Wife,  silently  biding  her  time.  But  the  Court  was  delightful, 
and  even  Catherine  enjoyed  it.  She  loved  to  laugh:  "she 
laughed  her  fill,"  says  Brantome,  "  for  she  liked  a  good  joke ; 
and  she  delighted  in  saying  a  witty  thing,  and  making  a  sharp 
repartee.  She  knew  well  how  to  do  it ;  she  never  missed  an 
opportunity."  And  the  beautiful  palaces  rose  up  everywhere,  till 
the  Loire  country  was  like  fairyland.  Amboise,  "supreme  in 
the  list  of  perched  places  "  ;  *  Chenonceaux,  "  that  enchanting 
caprice,"  like  a  miniature  Venice,  with  its  lakes  and  ponds  where 
swam  stately  swans  and  carps  with  golden  collars — a  love-gift 
from  Henry  to  his  settle  prmcesse ;  Blois,  "  flowering,  laughing, 
living  "  ;  Chambord,  immense,  yet  so  light  and  graceful,  with  its 
spiral  staircase  and  its  square  pavilions — and  Anet  above  all, 
Anet,  wondrous  and  to  us  for  ever  but  a  dream,  for  it  was 
ruined  by  a  Revolutionary  mob  in  1799. 

Thirteen  years  of  that — and  then,  at  last,  Catherine's 
revenge ! 

It  was  at  Paris,  in  the  summer  of  1559.  The  occasion  was 
a  double  wedding.  Henry's  daughter  Elizabeth  was  being 
married  to  Philip  II.  of  Spain,  and  his  sister  Margaret  to  the 
Duke  of  Savoy.  The  celebration  was  on  June  28th,  and  there 
was  a  three-days'  Tournoi  in  honour  of  it.  In  the  Rue  Saint- 
Antoine,  near  the  Bastille,  the  lists  were  set.  It  was  the  usual 
glittering  scene  ;  but  the  heart  of  Catherine  was  heavy.  Her 
*  Henry  James.    A  Little  Tour  in  France. 


14  DIANE   DE   POITIERS 

astrologer  had  read  a  terrible  augury  :  one  of  the  three  tourneys 
was  to  prove  fatal  to  the  King. 

At  dawn,  on  the  opening  day,  she  implored  him  not  to  risk 
his  life — she  pleaded  as  she  did  'not  often  plead  :  she  saw  him  so 
seldom,  for  pleading  or  anything  else !  But  it  was  useless.  Did 
not  his  seule  princesse  prize  valour  in  the  lists  beyond  aught  else  ? 
He  would  enter. 

The  first  day  went  by,  and  all  was  well.  He  laughed  at 
Catherine's  fears. 

"Ah!  Sire,  I  fear  for  two  days  more,"  she  answered. 

The  second  day,  Henry  was  still  victorious  and  unhurt. 
Catherine  was  half-consoled — the  astrologer  might  have  blun- 
dered. 

But  the  last  day  .  .  .  Towards  the  end,  a  tall  knight  rode 
into  the  lists,  wearing  the  well-known  black-and-white.  It  was 
Henry  on  his  favourite  horse,  "  Le  Turc  "  ;  and  three  times  that 
day  he  was  again  triumphant.  But  then  old  Vieilleville  went 
up  to  him.  Another  augury }  Yes :  Vieilleville  had  had  a 
dream  of  evil  omen.  "  The  King  waved  impatiently."  He 
challenged  Montgomery,  Captain  of  the  Scotch  Guards,  ordering 
him  to  arm  and  mount.  They  met — and  the  weapon  of  Mont- 
gomery, passing  the  King's  guard,  broke  against  his  armour. 
But  Henry  only  reeled,  was  not  unhorsed.  A  great  feat : 
murmurs  of  applause  went  round.  But  soon  the  murmurs 
deepened  :  horror  sounded  in  the  voices,  terror  was  fixed  upon 
the  faces.  As  the  knights  crossed  the  arena,  it  was  seen  that 
the  broken  lance  had  come  in  violent  contact  with  the  King's 
vizor.  A  splinter  had  got  in  behind  the  plates  ;  it  had  entered 
his  eye.  He  fell  to  the  ground.  Montgomery  stood  dazed  and 
motionless.  .  .  .  Was  it  treason  }  regicide }  No  one  has  ever 
known.  .  .  .  The  King  lay  on  the  ground,  surrounded  by 
courtiers,  and  Catherine  was  by  his  side — in  her  rightful  place 
at  last. 

Diane  was  left  almost  alone.  The  Court — so  quick,  so 
cruel } — stood  aloof.  For  twenty  years  she  had  been  his  seule 
princesse ;  but  his  Queen  was  with  him  then.  .  .  .  She  never 
saw  him  after  that  day.  She  humbled  her  pride  :  she  begged 
Catherine  to  grant  her  one  visit.     Catherine  refused.     It  was 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  15 

hard  punishment,  even  for  that  long  insult.  Too  hard — yes ; 
but  revenge  is  very  sweet. 

Shortly  before  the  end,  the  Queen  ordered  Madame  de  Valen- 
tinois  to  restore  the  Crown-jewels,  and  to  leave  Paris  at  once. 

"  Le  roi  est  mort  ?  "  asked  the  mistress. 

He  would  not  live  through  the  day,  they  told  her. 

And  she  replied,  "  J^e  nai  done  point  encore  de  maitre.  Tant 
qtHl  restera  d  Sa  Majeste  un  doigt  de  vie,  je  ne  crains  pas  mes 
ennemis ;  et  aprh  sa  mort^faurai  trop  de  chagrin  pour  sa  perte 
pour  sentir  les  insultes  qu'on  voudra  me  faired  That  was  a  fair 
reply ! 

He  died  on  July  lo,  1559,  eleven  days  after  the  Tournament. 
Catherine  de'  Medici  and  the  Due  de  Guise  were  appointed 
Regents.  Catherine's  first  action  was  to  order  Madame  de 
Valentinois  to  renounce  the  Castle  of  Chenonceaux,  and — again 
— to  leave  Paris  immediately. 

But  Diane  still  had  Dianet,  That  was  irrevocably  hers. 
Thither  she  retired,  leaving  the  French  Court  for  ever — there 
where  stood 

"  Partout  le  marbre  en  arabesque 
A  garder  I'hommage  dclatant 
Du  dernier  roi  chevaleresque  ' 

Et  du  seul  monarque  constant." 

Ihe  lived  at  Anet  in  entire  seclusion  until  April  25,  1566,  when 
she  died,  sixty-six  years  and  eight  months  old.  A  great  funeral 
was  held,  attended  by  half  the  nobility  of  France  ;  a  hundred 
poor  persons,  dressed  in  white,  carried  torches  and  told  beads : 
^^ Priez  Dieu  pour  Diane  de  Poitiers.'^ 

Jean  Goujon  carved  her  bust  for  the  gorgeous  tomb,  which 
remained  at  Anet  till  1799,  when  the  Revolutionists  destroyed 
the  Palace.  Her  remains  were  exposed  to  view,  then  thrown 
into  a  hastily-dug  grave  near  the  Chapel.  The  tomb  has  been 
scattered  piecemeal  in  the  various  museums  of  France. 

Did  she  love  Henry  1  She  was  ambitious,  cold,  and  calcu- 
lating ;  wild  for  luxury  and  power  ;  avid,  avaricious,  tenacious. 
.  .  .  With  all  these  things,  not  even  our  modern  paradox- 
mongers  have  as  yet  enjoined  us  to  associate  romance.     If  he 


16  DIANE  DE   POITIERS 

had  not  been  King,  would  she  have  loved  him  ?  Of  few  Royal 
mistresses  can  that  question  be  answered.  He  was  very  lovable 
— if  she  could  have  loved  any  one,  she  might  well  have  loved 
him.  But,  if  she  had,  she  could  not  have  governed  him  so 
despotically.  She  kept  her  head  too  perfectly  all  through !  .  .  . 
"  Diane  ne  veut  pas  vieillir^  ct  elle  ne  vieillit  pas'^  Michelet  thus 
interprets  for  us  her  secret  of  eternal  youth  :  "  It  was  never  to 
be  moved  by  anything,  to  care  for  anything,  to  pity  anything." 

That  is  a  hard  saying.  But  Guiffry,  in  many  a  penetrating 
page,  has  much  the  same  judgment  to  deliver.  Physiognomist, 
graphologist,  he  reads  her  face  and  her  handwriting  with  pitiless 
clairvoyance.  "  Those  eyes,  ever-watchful  {sans  cesse  aiLX  aguets\ 
whose  intelligent  cupidity  seems  always  fixed  upon  the  object 
of  her  desire — they  grow  with  age,  as  if  to  embrace  a  larger 
field  for  that  insatiable  greed."  They  were  imperious  too* 
"  In  her  look  at  Henry,  there  was  at  once  an  order,  and  the 
reward  for  obedience."  The  great  eyes  were  one  of  her  great 
spells.  The  mouth  had  thin,  close  lips — "  the  lips  for  orders  and 
caprices,  rather  than  for  sweet  caressing  words."  A  disdainful 
line  was  at  each  corner,  "showing  defiance  of  obstacles,  con- 
tempt for  the  rules  of  justice  and  honesty."  .  .  .  And  her  letters, 
he  says,  echo  her  face.  The  style  is  arid,  the  words  are  precise 
and  rigorously  reasonable.  These  are  her  business-letters.  We 
have  none  of  her  letters  of  love.  Henry's  remain,  but  nof  hers. 
It  was  then  obligatory  to  burn  all  important  letters,  and  lovers 
were  especially  careful,  whatever  pain  the  holocaust  might  give 
them.*  "  Her  love-letters  are  sure  to  have  been  calculated  pro- 
ductions," Guifiry  remarks  ;  and  gives  us  forthwith  a  brilliant 

*  Marot  has  an  exquisite  little  poem  about  a  burning  of  this  sort — 

"  Aulcunes  foys  au  feu  je  la  boutoye 
Pour  la  brusler  ;  puis  soubdain  1  en  ostoye  ; 
Puis  I'y  remis,  et  puis  Ten  recuUay, 
Mais  k  la  fin  (k  regret)  la  bruslay. 
En  disant :  '  Lettre  '  (apres  I'avoir  baisde) 
*  Puisqu'il  lui  plaist,  tu  sera  embrasde  : 
Car  j'ayme  mieulx  dueil,  en  obeyssant, 
Que  tout  plaisir  en  ddsobeyssant '  : 
Voila  comment  pouldre  et  cendre  devint 
L'ayse  plus  grand  qu'k  moy  oncques  advint." 


DIANE   DE    POITIERS 

FROM    A    CRAYON    DRAWING 


DIANE   DE   POITIERS  17 

display  of  graphology.  "Tall,  broad  letters,  well-placed,  they 
take  possession  of  the  paper  at  once — no  hesitation  in  will  or 
hand.  The  signature  confirms  all  this  ;  the  name  is  placed  at 
the  end  of  the  written  thoughts,  like  a  radiant,  magic  word ! " 
He  compares  her  handwriting  with  Henry's :  "  Pauvre  petite 
kriture  grele  et  toiite  craintive  ! "  No  need,  he  says,  to  ask 
which  was  master. 

She  is  well  hated  by  her  chroniclers,  this  lady  with  the  jet- 
black  hair  and  the  wonderful  white  slender  hands  !  All  the 
glamour  has  not  dazzled  them.  Guiffry  is  even  ready  to  point 
out  where  the  wrinkles  were  coming  when  she  should  permit 
them  to  come.  .  .  . 

But  one  thing  we  must  remember.  Not  only  did  she  dazzle, 
did  she  rule,  her  King — most  great  mistresses  have  achieved  so 
much.  Her  distinction  is  to  have  made  him  radiantly  and 
exquisitely  happy :  Anet  was  literally  the  Earthly  Paradise  to 
the  lover  of  Diane  de  Poitiers.  Let  the  destined  Royal  victims 
of  all  ages  testify  to  the  rarity  of  that ! 


BIANCA   CAPELLO 

I 548-1 587 

TO  interest  one's-self  in  the  study  of  the  life  and  death 
of  Bianca  Capello  is  to  realize  afresh  the  imperishable 
inaccuracy  of  history.  The  spelling  of  her  name,  the 
dates  of  her  birth  and  death,  the  manner  of  her  famous  flight, 
her  death,  her  burial — everything  that  can  be  disputed  is  dis- 
puted, through  book  upon  book,  note  upon  note,  till  the  brain 
whirls  and  the  pen  staggers. 

The  following  of  the  picturesque  biographers  is  an  almost 
irresistible  temptation,  for  many  of  the  fictions  are  excellently 
imagined  ;  but  the  historic  conscience,  already  stirred  from 
lethargy  by  her  much-documented  German  chronicler,  Sieben- 
kees,  is  awakened  to  feverish  activity  by  the  still  later  researches 
of  Emanuele  Cigogna,  who  destroys  ruthlessly  the  greater 
number  of  the  fairy-tales  which  have  sprung  up  like  bindweed 
round  the  mere  stark  truth. 

The  choice  must  be  made ;  and  Cigogna,  with  his  endless 
documents,  inevitably  comes  off  victorious.  But  he  is  the  Spirit 
that  Denies  ;  he  shall  come  in,  like  Browning's  Galuppi,  "  with 
his  cold  music,  till  we  creep  through  every  nerve."  .  .  . 

And  we  will  have  our  story  too ! 


Bianca  Capello  was  the  daughter  of  Bartolomeo  Capello, 
nobleman  and  senator  of  Venice,  and  was  born  in  1548.  Her 
father  was  a  Member  of  the  Council ;  her  uncle,  Grimani,  was 
Patriarch  of  Aquilea — a  dignity  never  held  but  by  a  nobleman. 
This  Grimani  was  the  step-maternal  uncle  ;  her  own  mother  was 
dead,  and  she  had  for  some  time  lived  without  any  feminine 

18 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  19 

supervision.  She  had  made  bad  use  of  her  liberty  :  "  she  took 
to  freer  habits  of  life  than  were  usual  among  Venetian  damsels." 
The  advent  of  a  stepmother,  unwelcome  always,  was  therefore 
particularly  unwelcome  to  her.  At  fifteen,  she  was  already  very 
beautiful.  Her  face  was  handsome  and  proud — "  but  the  pride 
was  tempered  by  a  sort  of  remote  melancholy,  which  paled 
her  cheeks  and  clouded  her  great  sad  eyes."  She  was  fretting, 
in  fact,  under  the  new  bondage — sulking  about  the  cruel  step- 
mother. It  is  like  the  beginning  of  a  fairy-tale  ;  and,  sure  enough, 
there  arrives  Prince  Charming,  in  the  person  of  a  clerk  at  the 
great  Banking-House  of  the  Salviati,  those  Florentine  7'ic/nsszmes, 
who  had  a  branch-office  in  Venice.  Prince  Charming's  name 
was  Pietro  Bonaventuri — young,  handsome,  and  very  amorous. 
He  saw  her — "  and  to  see  her,  and  to  fall  violently  in  love  with 
her,  were  the  same  thing  for  him.  The  pen  fell  from  his  hands, 
so  did  the  account-books ;  all  that  ordinarily  interests  mankind 
here  below  became  intolerable  to  him  ;  life  itself  seemed  insuffer- 
able without  her."  At  last  they  met.  Eyes  had  often  met 
already.  One  of  the  demolished  fables  is  that  of  the  Salviati 
Bank  and  the  Capello  Palace  having  been  opposite  to  one 
another.  It  would  be  charming  to  believe,  but  Cigogna  will 
have  none  of  it.  "  This  is  a  grave  error,"  says  the  inexorable 
man.  The  houses  were  in  a  straight  line  ;  "  not  even,"  adds 
Trollope  the  Puck-like,  "  within  glanceshot."  Love,  none  the 
less,  found  out  the  way.  The  only  chance  of  speaking  to  the 
now  well-guarded  girl  was  when  she  went  to  church.  Her  maid 
was  with  her  even  then,  but  maids  exist  to  be  suborned,  and 
this  one  did  not  struggle  long  against  her  fate.  Soon  all  was 
arranged.  There  were  the  usual  properties — false  keys,  mid- 
night meetings,  the  moonlight  and  the  dawnlight.  ..."  The 
damsel  would  escape  in  the  heart  of  the  night  to  visit  her 
Pietro."  Thus  Galluzzi,  a  Jesuit  writer,  who  has  no  leaning  in 
her  favour.  He  continues,  with  the  ruthless  Italian  plain-speak- 
ing: "This  could  not  of  course  go  on  for  long  in  tranquillity. 
There  came  the  fruits  of  love,  and  the  consequent  terror  of  the 
young  parents." 

The  young  parents,  terrified  indeed,  fled  from  Venice  across 
the  Apennines  to  Florence,  the  home  of  Bonaventuri,  on  the 


20  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

night  of  the  28th-29th  November,  1563 — Bianca  being  then 
about  sixteen  years  old. 

It  seems,  when  reading  the  chronicles  of  those  days,  as  if 
no  matrimonial  adventure  of  any  kind — open  or  clandestine — 
could  possibly  be  undertaken  except  in  the  depth  of  winter. 
The  Sentimentalists,  struck  also  no  doubt  by  the  singular  choice 
of  date,  invented  the  prettiest  of  their  fairy-tales  to  account  for 
it.    We  may  call  it  the  Story  of  the  Baker's  Boy. 

According  to  this  fantasy,  it  was  at  early  dawn  that  pretty 
Bianca  used  to  steal  out  to  meet  il  stw  Pietro^  leaving  the  Palace- 
door  ajar  so  that  she  could  get  back  unobserved.  On  the  fatal 
morning,  she  had  left  the  heavy  portal  just  as  usual  .  .  .  but  the 
Goddess  of  Mischance  had  been  dared  once  too  often ;  to-day 
it  was  her  turn,  and  she  selected  as  her  instrument  an  innocent 
baker's  boy,  going  his  rounds  with  the  sunrise  to  awaken  the 
housemaids  and  servants  so  that  the  bread  might  be  prepared 
for  his  master's  ovens.  He  saw  the  Capello  door  ajar — and 
shut  it  tight.  His  intentions  were  of  the  best.  Nothing  should 
be  stolen  or  carried  away  from  the  Palace  if  he  could  prevent  it- 
Something  was  carried  away  that  early  morning — that  something 
being  the  terrified  little  daughter  of  the  house  !  Nothing,  out- 
side that  shut  door,  was  left  but  instant  flight,  since  discovery 
meant  lifelong  imprisonment  in  a  cloister  for  her,  and  summary 
vengeance  of  the  family  upon  her  lover. 

It  would  be  diverting  to  believe  in  the  Baker's  Boy  also. 
Once  more  it  may  not  be.  Cigogna  will  have  none  of  him. 
"  The  flight  was  premeditated,"  he  sternly  remarks ;  and  other 
historians  support  him,  giving  as  their  reason  a  circumstance 
which  he  rejects  !  Bianca,  in  a  word,  is  said  to  have  carried  with 
her  all  the  jewels  and  silver  plate  that  she  could  lay  her  hands  on. 

Whether  she  did  that  or  not,  there  is  no  doubt  that  the 
flight  had  been  arranged.  Very  dramatic,  with  the  drama  of 
paleography,  is  the  evidence  for  this.  In  one  of  the  twelve 
million  volumes  of  the  Archives  of  Venice  there  is  a  page  upon 
which  certain  passages  have  been  blotted  out.  Opposite  to  them, 
in  the  margin,  stands  a  Latin  inscription  :  "  Obliterated  by  oi'der 
of  the  Council  of  Ten."  The  volume  is  a  register  of  criminal 
processes  for  the  year  1563.  .  .  .  But  the  Terrible  Ten  have  been 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  21 

foiled,  the  secret  is  discovered  ;  for  the  obliteration  was  not 
efficiently  done  !  Instead  of  cutting  away  the  passage,  the 
persons  responsible  merely  "  drew  a  pen  filled  with  different 
ink  across  the  lines  " — and  so  the  paleographer  triumphed. 

The  passage  thus  erased  was  an  indictment  against  Pietro 
Bonaventuri  for  that  he,  "  with  hateful  insolence  and  disrespect 
for  the  nobles  of  Venice,"  had  abducted  Bianca,  daughter  of 
Bartolomeo  Capello,  knowing  her  to  be  the  heir  to  no  mean 
fortune,  "  she  being  deceived  by  many  lies  and  having  scarce 
completed  her  sixteenth  year."  Follows  a  judgment  of  death 
against  him  if  he  be  arrested.  Bartolomeo  Capello  offers  a 
reward  for  his  production,  alive  or  dead.  Judgment  is  also 
given  against  Maria  Donati,  a  serving-maid  who  had  aided  in 
the  flight.  .  .  .  We  shall  see,  later  on,  why  the  Ten  desired  thus 
to  bury  the  past. 

There  remains  no  question,  then,  that  handsome  Pietro  was 
a  scoundrel.  He  was  a  poor  clerk,  of  no  birth  and  no  prospects ; 
she  was  a  considerable  heiress  ;  and  he  had  given  her  to  under- 
stand that  he  belonged  to  the  powerful  Salviati  family.  All 
may  be  fair  in  love,  but  that  all  is  fair  in  marriage  is  more 
debatable.  What  can  have  been  the  feelings  of  the  girl  when  at 
last,  after  the  terrible  journey,  she  got  to  Florence,  and  to  the 
house  of  "  her  Pietro's  "  parents  ?  It  was  a  wretched  hut  in  the 
Piazza  di  San  Marco  !  By  the  time  they  arrived,  they  were 
married — had  been  married  by  a  friendly  priest  in  a  village  near 
Bologna — so  it  was  too  late  for  repentance,  though  this  might 
well  have  been  the  place  sought  carefully  with  tears. 

Her  child  was  born  very  soon  after  her  instalment.  The  old 
people  were  grindingly  poor — so  poor  that  on  their  son's  arrival 
with  his  bride,  the  first  thing  that  had  to  be  done  was  to  dismiss 
their  one  servant :  impossible  to  retain  her  now  that  there  were 
two  more  mouths  to  feed.  Mother  Bonaventuri  was  too  old  to 
work,  so  the  young  daughter-in-law,  on  her  recovery,  had  to  per- 
form all  the  menial  offices  of  the  household.  Noble  (an  adoring 
Reverend  biographer)  tells  us,  with  tears  in  his  pen,  that  she 
even  took  in  washing.  Poetic  justice  had  well  overtaken  Master 
Pietro,  for  he  had  lost  of  course  his  clerkly  salary,  and  Bianca's 
fortune  of  six  thousand  crowns,  inherited  from  her  mother,  was 


22  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

declared  to  be  confiscated.  They  were  obliged,  moreover,  to 
court  obscurity,  for  Bonaventuri  was  furiously  pursued  by  the 
Capello  family.  The  stepmother  was  angriest  of  all — "  sirrito 
sopra  tiUtV^ — at  the  insult  to  the  houses  of  Capello  and  Grimani. 
It  is  the  way  of  stepmothers,  and  this  one  had  an  exceptional 
degree  of  power  as  well  as  of  anger.  Her  brother  was  Patriarch 
of  Aquilea  ;  through  him  she  obtained  a  decree  against  the 
whole  family  of  Bonaventuri,  so  that  Pietro's  uncle,  accused  of 
connivance,  was  arrested  and  imprisoned  in  a  subterranean 
dungeon.  He  died  there  of  intermittent  fever.  The  maid, 
Maria  Donati,  was  also  done  to  death.  Finally  Pietro  and 
Bianca  were  banished  as  outlawed  robbers. 

Thus  she  lived  for  a  time,  while  all  Italy  was  ringing  with 
the  scandal — all  Italy — and  more  significantly,  all  Florence. 
For  it  soon  became  known  that  the  notorious  couple  were  in 
Florence,  and  among  those  most  interested  by  the  news  was 
Francesco  de*  Medici,  not  yet  actually  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany, 
since  his  father  Cosmo  was  still  alive ;  but  practically  ruler,  for 
Cosmo  had  resigned  all  power  into  his  hands.  The  Florentine 
Court  was  at  this  time  a  scene  of  dissipation  and  licence,  crimes 
and  murders,  intrigues  and  basenesses  of  all  sorts.  Francesco 
himself  must  have  been  an  unattractive  person.  "He  can 
scarcely,"  comments  Trollope,  "be  considered  sane."  He  was 
terribly  moody  ;  his  brow  was  for  ever  black  with  gloom  ;  he 
had  occasional  fits  of  appalling  violence.  "  His  ignorance  of 
right  and  wrong  was  far  deeper,  far  more  dangerous  and  more 
perverse,  than  that  of  a  savage."  Moderation  in  anything  he 
was  unacquainted  with,  and  indeed,  when  we  read  the  details  of 
his  every-day  life,  we  cease  to  wonder  at  his  behaviour.  His 
food,  for  instance  !  Everything  he  ate  was  mixed  with  the  most 
fiery  condiments,  ginger,  pepper,  nutmeg,  cloves  ;  and  "  before, 
during,  and  after  these  meals,"  he  would  swallow  raw  eggs,  filled 
with  red  pepper.  But  that  was  not  all.  His  second  choice  in 
eatables  was  raw  onions,  radishes,  any  roots,  in  fact  (the  anathe- 
matized "  anything  that  grows  underground  "  of  modern  diet- 
experts  !),  together  with  "  enormous  quantities  of  the  strongest 
cheese."  Discomforting  enough,  in  the  mere  recital — and  we 
find  that  when  Francesco  had  had  his  fill  of  these  dainties,  he 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  23 

would  drink  immense  beakers  of  iced  water,  plunge  his  head 
and  hands  in  snow,  and  go  to  bed  in  iced  sheets !  The  last 
delight  was  "  his  constant  habit,"  says  Soderini.  "  And  this  he 
did  in  imitation  of  Prosper©  Colonna  and  other  notable  men," 
for  Francesco  was  of  the  parrot-class  of  humans — he  loved  to 
plagiarize  other  men's  originalities.  He  was  more  learned  than 
Cosmo,  but  inferior  as  a  statesman  ;  his  outlook  was  narrow, 
and  by  his  treatment  of  affairs  he  depreciated  the  prestige  of 
the  Grand  Duchy,  and  made  of  Tuscan  history  a  mere  municipal 
record.  On  the  other  hand,  he  was  the  patron  of  the  best 
artists  ;  it  is  to  him  that  the  Florentine  picture-galleries  owe 
much  of  their  splendour.  He  tried  to  revive  the  art  of  Ceramics, 
but  was  unsuccessful ;  with  Mosaics  he  had  better  fortune,  and 
they  reached  their  highest  perfection  in  his  time.  He  was  bom 
in  1 541,  seven  years  before  Bianca,  with  whom  Destiny  was  now 
waiting  to  link  his  life. 

Francesco  had  heard  the  story  with  which  Italy  was  ringing, 
and  had  no  doubt  heard  also  of  the  lady's  beauty.  A  Medici 
was  not  likely  to  leave  unsatisfied  for  long  such  curiosity  as  all 
this  must  have  aroused  ;  but  there  were  difficulties,  for  the  young 
Bonaventuri  bride  preserved  a  strict  seclusion,  due  not  only  to  the 
dangers  of  discovery,  but  to  the  even  more  cogent  reason  that 
she  had  nothing  to  wear.  And  now — the  Sentimentalists  enter, 
in  full  cry !  There  is  a  story  of  a  procession,  a  Grand  Duke 
riding  beneath  a  window,  an  exquisite  woman's  face  looking 
down  upon  him  ...  a  lingering  retreat,  a  turned  eager  head  ; 
then,  a  resolute  admirer,  a  modest  and  ungetatable  beauty,  a 
Spanish  tutor  and  his  rascally  go-between  of  a  wife.  .  .  .  Bion- 
delli's  account  of  this  "  Mondragone  Episode  "  is  too  amusing 
to  be  passed  over — but  be  it  remembered  that  Biondelli,  not  so 
sentimental  as  Larousse,  Sanseverino,  and  Rose,  is  nevertheless 
easily  first  in  unveracity. 

The  Marchesa  Mondragone,  then,  approaches  Mother  Bona- 
venturi as  the  messenger  of  her  husband,  who  is  attached  closely 
to  the  Court  and  has  Francesco's  ear.  Does  not  the  mournful 
bride  desire  this  powerful  aid  for  herself  and  husband  ?  ("  Thus 
did  human  malice,  which  knows  no  bounds,"  sighs  Litta,  in  his 
stupendous  work,  Celebre  Famiglie,  "contrive  to  make  its  own 


24  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

use  of  Bianca's  very  love  for  her  husband ! ")  The  old  lady 
answers  bluntly  that  it  is  little  good  asking  her  daughter-in-law 
to  go  to  Court,  for  she  has  no  clothes  and  is  too  poor  to  get 
any.  But  the  smiling  Marchesa  will  lend  her  something  !  The 
bride  is  persuaded.  She  and  her  mother-in-law  repair  one  fine 
morning  to  the  Mondragone  quarters.  The  Marquis  arrives, 
engages  the  old  lady  in  conversation,  while  his  wife  and  Bianca 
slip  out  of  the  room — "  to  look  at  some  frocks  which  might  be 
of  use  to  you."  How  vivid  it  all  seems — how  the  centuries  fade 
away !  .  .  .  They  go  through  the  house,  finally  come  to  a 
secluded  room,  where  stands  "  a  magnificent  bed " — and  from 
that  pass  into  a  little  cabinet,  where,  opening  a  casket,  the 
hostess  draws  out  some  rich  jewels.  "  While  you  are  examining 
these,  I'll  fetch  the  keys  of  my  wardrobes."  The  lady  dis- 
appears .  .  .  Enter  Francesco  !  ,  .  .  Bianca  trembles  from  head 
to  foot,  turns  crimson,  falls  on  her  knees  before  him.  "  Spare 
my  honour  :  it  is  all  that  is  left  me." 

"  Do  not  fear  me,  lady ! "  He  disappears,  with  nobility. 
Pale  and  confused,  the  beauty  rises  to  her  feet. 

'Tis  a  pretty  scene.  But,  despite  high-flown  speeches,  blushes, 
tears,  noble  vanishings  ...  it  was  not  long  before  that  merciless 
Italian  plain-speaking  was  designating  the  young  lady  as  cosa 
di  Francesco — for  "  the  great  ones  of  the  earth  "  (to  quote  Litta 
again)  "have  many  means  at  their  disposal  wherewith  to  attain 
their  ends." 

Francesco's  negotiations  for  his  marriage  with  Giovanna, 
Archduchess  of  Austria,  were  going  on  at  the  same  time  as  his 
so  different  arrangements  with  the  lovely  Venetian  girl.  Great 
secrecy  had,  therefore,  to  be  observed.  His  father,  unable  to 
fulminate  on  the  moral  side,  since  he  had  treated  his  own  first 
wife  in  precisely  similar  fashion,  harped  urgently  on  the  risks 
of  these  nocturnal  visits.  Francesco's  guards  were  already  grum- 
bling over  their  midnight  waitings ;  Florence  was  murmurous 
with  satires  and  pasquinades.  Cosmo's  letters,  however,  merely 
fanned  the  flame :  with  a  subtle  irony,  the  ardent  lover,  "  to 
avoid  these  risks,"  established  the  lady,  soon  after  the  year  1564, 
on  the  Via  Maggiore. 

His   marriage  with   Giovanna   took   place    in    1565.     The 


RIANCA   CAPELLO 

FROM    THE    I'ICTUKE    BY    ALESSANDRO    ALLOKI    IN    THE    UFKIZZI    GALLERY,    FLOREN'CE 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  25 

unhappy  Archduchess  was  kind  and  courteous,  but  stiff  in  manner, 
of  melancholy  temperament,  and,  worst  of  all,  very  far  from 
beautiful.  Brought  up  in  an  Imperial  Court,  she  never  could 
take  a  Grand-Ducal  one  seriously,  and  she  clung  foolishly  to  her 
own  people — the  Austrians  whom  she  had  brought  with  her, 
while  she  treated  the  Florentines  with  cold  indifference.  There 
was  little  hope  for  such  a  union,  even  under  favourable  conditions, 
and  the  conditions  were  as  unfavourable  as  they  could  be.  Long 
before  the  marriage,  Bianca  had  obtained  complete  ascendency 
over  the  Grand  Duke.  "  Few,"  says  Galluzzi,  "  are  the  examples 
of  such  weakness  as  that  of  Francesco,  and  of  a  lady  so  cunning 
and  so  shameless  in  taking  advantage  of  it." 


Of  Bianca's  beauty  there  can  be  no  doubt,  though  Montaigne 
and  Trollope  speak  slightingly  of  it.  Montaigne,  quoted  in 
Larousse,  says  that  she  was  handsome  according  to  Italian  ideas. 
"She  is  stout  and  of  a  very  full  bosom,  as  the  Italian  taste 
desires."  Trollope  is  even  less  agreeable ;  but  Sanseverino  speaks 
of  a  portrait  which  he  had  seen  at  Pisa  (probably  that  by  one  of 
the  Bronzinos),  painted  when  she  was  thirty.  "  She  was  taller 
than  most  women,  and  her  bearing  was  haughty  and  majestic. 
Her  face  and  hands  and  throat  were  as  white  as  lilies,  save  for  a 
delicate  rose-colour  in  the  cheeks,  singularly  striking  in  contrast 
with  the  exquisite  pallor  of  the  rest.  Her  hair  was  fair,  curled 
naturally,  and  fell  in  rich  locks  upon  her  shoulders.  She  had  a 
vast  rounded  forehead  (!)  and  beneath  it  shone  the  most  brilliant 
and  radiant  eyes  that  painter  ever  painted.  Her  slightly  pouting 
lips  were  crimson." 

Bronzino's  lovely  miniature  of  her,  a  copy  of  which  is  at  the 
British  Museum,  represents  a  most  beautiful  woman ;  and 
Alessandro  Allori,  his  nephew  (also  called  II  Bronzino), 
painted  her,  and  painted  a  serene  and  exquisite  face,  full  of 
magic,  power,  and  that  "  remote  melancholy  "  which  Larousse 
assigns  her.  Fascinating,  too,  she  must  have  been.  In  later 
life,  she  seems  only  ,to  have  had  to  put  forth  her  spell,  and 
straightway  all  fell  out  as  she  desired.  To  gain  complete 
ascendency  over   such   a  man  as  Francesco  argues,  moreover, 


26  BIANCA  CAPELLO 

considerable  intuition,  finesse,  and  self-control.  She  had  learnt 
them  in  a  hard  school.  The  cruel  step-mother  and  the 
scoundrel-husband  had  left  their  marks  upon  her ;  little  as 
she  engages  sympathy  in  later  years,  we  can,  perhaps,  at  this 
period  extend  her  some  forgiveness.  So  young,  so  lovely,  and 
so  basely  used ;  not  ever  a  model  character,  wild,  wayward,  and 
untrained — to  find  herself  faced  with  a  temptation  so  enormous, 
a  prize  so  dazzling  to  be  gained,  to  realize,  as  the  months  went 
by,  her  increasing  spell  for  the  ruler  of  her  destinies,  and,  at  the 
same  time,  the  utter  worthlessness  of  her  husband — is  it  im- 
possible to  condone  Bianca's  fault,  remembering  too  the  licentious 
life  around  her,  the  venal  old  mother-in-law,  the  specious 
Marchesa  with  her  bibelots  and  her  gowns  ;  above  all,  the  strong 
ambitious  spirit  dormant  in  the  girl,  which  had  awakened  only 
to  know  itself  so  bitterly  deceived  ?  She  had  run  away  with  a 
Salviati,  and  had  found  an  obscure,  nameless  clerk ;  she  had 
looked  for  a  home  in  a  palace,  and  had  been  turned  into  the 
drudge  of  a  miserable  hovel.  A  virtue  which  could  have 
triumphed  to  the  end  over  such  things  would  never  have 
brought  her  there  at  all. 

And  now,  the  anger  which  long  had  smouldered  blazed  forth. 
Ambition  henceforth  should  be  her  guide.  Love  had  failed  her. 
All  her  beauty  and  her  magic  had  been  worsted  in  that  field. 
She  would  see  if  they  could  not  conquer  elsewhere.  She  had 
loved  her  Pietro — and  this  was  what  he  had  done  with  her.  She 
did  not  love  her  Francesco — we  shall  see  what  she  did  with  him. 

Her  history  now  becomes  less  involved,  for  a  time,  in 
contradictory  rumours.  The  straight  path  of  "shameless 
effrontery  "  lay  before  her,  and  she  trod  it  with  no  faltering  step. 

We  have  seen  that  before  Francesco's  marriage,  Bianca  was 
established  in  a  palace  in  the  Via  Maggiore.  Her  husband  was 
given  the  office  of  Chamberlain,  and  instantly  proceeded  to 
excel  in  the  part  of  a  beggar  on  horseback.  The  Medici  were 
already  unpopular  in  Florence.  Cosmo  had  enraged  his  people 
with  evil  living,  and  licentious  treatment  of  their  womenkind. 
Francesco  was  now  reaping  the  whirlwind.  Detestation,  not 
merely  unpopularity,  was  what  he  had  to  deal  with,  and  the 
appointment  of  Bonaventuri  to  a  high  function  added  nothing  to 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  27 

the  prestige  of  his  Court.  Bonaventuri,  however,  soon  had  rope 
enough  to  hang  himself  by.  Among  his  many  intrigues,  the  chief 
was  with  Cassandra  Bongianni,  a  rich  widow  who  had  already 
given  her  family  a  deal  of  very  serious  trouble.  Two  of  her 
lovers  had  been  summarily  disposed  of  by  her  menkind  before 
Pietro  appeared.  He  was  repeatedly  warned  ;  Francesco, 
Bianca,  both  appealed  in  vain.  To  the  latter  he  replied — 
forcibly  and  unanswerably — "  If  you  say  another  word,  I  will 
cut  your  throat,  and  then  I  can  tear  off  the  golden  horns  with 
which  you  have  decorated  my  forehead."  Francesco  overheard, 
and,  later,  remarked  grimly  to  Bianca  that  "as  her  husband 
would  take  no  advice,  they  must  only  leave  him  to  his  destiny." 

A  few  nights  afterwards,  Bonaventuri  was  assassinated  as  he 
was  returning  from  a  midnight  visit  to  Cassandra.  Francesco 
was  away,  and  did  not  return  till  two  days  later.  Then 
(according  to  Noble,  her  unflinching  adorer)  "the  beautiful 
Bianca,  unable  to  conquer  her  passion  for  her  husband,  so 
undeserving  of  her,  went  to  the  Grand  Duke  in  all  the  pomp  of 
mourning,"  flung  herself  at  his  feet,  and  demanded  vengeance 
upon  Pietro's  murderers.  This  was  promised ;  but  so  half- 
hearted were  the  measures  taken,  that  they  easily  escaped  to 
France. 

Thus  perished  the  Prince  Charming  of  the  Fairy-Tales — of 
the  Stories  of  The  House  Opposite,  and  The  Baker's  Boy ! 

Historians  differ  wildly  as  to  the  date.  The  most  probable 
by  far  is  1572  ;  for  in  that  year  there  is  a  letter  from  Bianca 
speaking  of  the  "  recent  event "  in  a  context  which  points  to 
this  as  being  certainly  the  event  referred  to,  and  as  being 
probably  very  recent.  Of  Francesco's  connivance  there  is  no 
doubt.  In  a  conversation  with  his  confessor,  he  admitted  it. 
"  I  gave  neither  my  advice  nor  assistance.  I  merely  suffered  it 
to  be  accomplished." 

Bianca  was  soon  proclaimed  openly  as  his  mistress.  She 
had  made  him  promise  before  a  sacred  image  that  he  would 
marry  her  if  ever  they  were  both  at  liberty.  Now  one  obstacle 
was  removed.  There  remained  Giovanna,  and  there  remained 
also  a  condition.  Francesco's  greatest  affliction  —  intensified 
when  he  became  Grand  Duke  in  1574 — was  the  fact  that  he  had 


28  BIANCA  CAPELLO 

no  male  heir.  Giovanna  had  given  him  only  daughters,  and  he 
could  not  endure  the  thought  of  being  succeeded  by  a  brother. 
He  even  said  sometimes  that  he  would  be  content  with  a  natural 
son.  Bianca  knew  this.  Giovanna  was  declining  in  health 
every  day ;  Pietro  was  dead  ;  what  might  not  now  be  gained  if 
that  son  would  but  make  his  appearance  .?  There  seemed,  alas  ! 
little  hope  of  it.  She  had  not  had  a  child  since  the  birth  of 
Pellegrina,  ten  years  before,  and  already  her  health  was  much 
impaired  by  two  disastrous  causes.  Intemperance  was  one  ;  the 
other  was  the  use  of  quack  nostrums  to  achieve  the  very  end 
which  they  so  signally  defeated.  For  this  kind  of  thing,  for 
quacks  and  witches  in  all  their  varied  forms  of  activity,  Bianca 
had  a  lifelong  passion.  She  would  try  every  dose  that  she  heard 
of;  it  was  even  reported  that  she  used  love-philtres  upon  herself 
and  Francesco  to  retain  his  devotion. 

Already  how  marked  is  the  deterioration  in  the  girl !  Life 
can  hardly  have  been  worth  living,  with  a  frantic  anxiety  like 
this  gnawing  at  her  heart ;  dissipation  and  luxury  surrounded 
her  during  most  of  the  day  and  night,  but  there  were  the  solitary 
hours  which  no  one  can  escape,  and  terrible  must  have  been 
their  effect,  to  issue  in  her  desperate  resolve. 

"On  the  29th  of  August,  1576,  a  male  child  was  born  in 
the  palace  on  the  Via  Maggiore."  Was  born  .  .  .  not  in  the 
palace  and  not  to  Bianca,  but  in  one  of  the  poorest  slums  of 
the  city  to  a  woman  of  the  people,  from  whose  arms  he  was 
taken  within  an  hour  of  his  birth.  According  to  Biondelli,  the 
baby  was  smuggled  into  the  palace  in  a  mandoline  !  We  need 
not  believe  this ;  but  what  we  must  believe  is  that  the  longed-for 
male  child  was  not  even  a  natural  one.  For  months  Bianca  had 
acted  ;  and  when  it  came  to  the  supreme  scene,  she  acted  better 
than  ever.  Hours  went  by  in  torture — of  body  (apparently)  for 
her,  of  mind  (actually)  for  Francesco,  who  insisted  upon  remain- 
ing through  the  ordeal !  This  was  inconvenient :  the  only  plan 
was  to  wear  him  out.  With  the  dawn,  his  fortitude  at  last 
broke  down  ;  he  was  induced  to  leave  her  room ;  a  pretext  was 
found  for  dismissing  all  other  superfluous  persons — and  the 
trick  was  done ! 

The  child  was  called  Antonio  de*  Medici,  and  the  Grand 


BIANCA  CAPELLO  29 

Duke  fervently  believed  in  him — as  long  as  he  could,  and,  if 
the  Irishism  be  permitted,  even  longer.  For  Bianca  herself 
finally  confessed  to  him  that  the  child  was  not  theirs.  Probably 
she  did  well,  for  retribution  was  arriving  fast.  She  had  not 
neglected  to  have  her  accomplices  removed.  They  were  three — 
the  real  mother,  another  woman,  also  expectant,  to  serve  as 
understudy,  and  Giovanna  Santi,  her  waiting-woman.  This  last 
escaped  from  her  too-hasty  assassins,  who  "left  her  for  dead  "  in 
a  lonely  pass  of  the  Apennines.  She  was  not  dead,  and  she 
managed  to  get  to  Bologna,  where  she  made  a  deposition,  and 
ordered  it  to  be  sent  to  Francesco's  brother,  Cardinal  Ferdinand. 
He  never  used  it  against  Bianca  during  her  life-time,  but  it  is 
not  inconceivable  that  he  threatened  her  with  doing  so.  The 
brothers  were  hostile.  Francesco  was  obstinate,  and  resented 
interference  from  his  younger  brother ;  if  Ferdinand  had  told 
him  the  story,  he  would  certainly  have  refused  it  any  credence — 
since  even  when  Bianca  confessed,  he  still  persisted  in  calling 
Don  Antonio  his  son.  Still,  she  made  the  avowal — and  made  it 
with  all  her  subtlety,  dwelling  upon  the  taunts  of  the  brothers  at 
Francesco's  lack  of  male  offspring,  and  the  galling  circumstance 
that  Ferdinand  would  succeed  to  the  Grand  Dukedom,  should 
no  further  heir  be  granted  them — a  first  hint  at  her  deeper  design, 
the  legitimation  of  the  reputed  son. 

So  far,  so  good  ;  but  destiny,  ever  the  surpriser,  had  a  big 
surprise  ready.  Poor  plain  Giovanna  had  sunk  into  complete 
insignificance  during  these  triumphant  Bianca-years.  Life 
together  was  intolerable  to  herself  and  her  husband  ;  she  had 
already  made  complaint — she  had  even  written  to  Cosmo.  He, 
as  has  been  hinted,  could  not  take  a  high  moral  standpoint ;  the 
only  view  he  could  understand  was  that  of  the  henpecked 
husband  of  a  jealous  wife.  His  letter  in  reply  to  her  is  a  model 
in  this  sort.  He  advised  her  "  not  to  get  grasshoppers  in  her 
head,"  *  added  that  she  had  many  proofs  of  her  husband's  love, 
and  wound  up  by  advising  "  a  suitable  behaviour."  Whatever 
that  may  have  been — and  opinions  on  suitable  behaviour  in 
such  circumstances  differ  widely — Giovanna  was  at  last  to  have 
her  day. 

*  Ghiribizzi  in  testa. 


so  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

In  May  of  the  following  year — 1577 — she  found  herself  the 
mother  of  a  son.  Francesco  was  overjoyed,  he  showered  marks 
of  gratitude  upon  her ;  the  birth  was  announced  to  all  the 
European  Courts,  and  the  King  of  Spain  stood  sponsor  for  the 
child,  who  was  called  Filippo,  in  recognition  of  this  honour.  The 
christening  was  magnificent.  Florence  was  en  fitCy  for  Giovanna 
was  the  only  popular  person  at  Court ;  her  misfortunes  and  the 
dignity  with  which  she  bore  them  had  softened  the  Florentine 
hearts — moreover,  Francesco  and  Bianca  were  so  detested  that 
it  was  agreeable  to  have  somebody  to  like. 

Now  came  the  hour  of  Bianca's  humiliation.     She  grew  more 
unpopular  than  ever,  and  at  last  it  was  found  advisable  for  her 
to  leave  Florence.     Bitter  it  must  have  been  to  the  arrogant 
woman  ;  for,  though  Francesco  visited  her  secretly  more  than 
ever,  we  may  be   sure   that   that  did   not   content   her.     One 
guesses  that  it  was  perhaps  no  less  of  a  relief  than  a  joy  to 
the  Grand  Duke  when  in  the  following  year  she  came  back 
to  Florence !     This  return  marked  the  end  of  Giovanna's  little 
day.     Already  Bianca  had  become  reconciled  with  her  family. 
In  1576,  her  father  had  paid  her  a  visit,  and  had  been  loaded 
with  presents  by  Francesco;  and  now  in  this  year  1578,  there 
arrived  in  Florence  her  brother  Vittorio.     He  was  received  like 
the  ambassador  of  a  great  power ;  feted  and  caressed,  he  rode 
in  triumph  through  the  city.  .  .  .  Giovanna  realized  the  truth. 
All  this  time,  she  had  but  been  the  more  bitterly  deceived.     She 
was  again  about  to  give  birth  to  a  child.     In  the  distress  of  her 
discovery,  all  went  wrong ;  she  died  under  the  surgeon's  hands 
on  April  10,  1578.     The  usual  word  ran  about — the  word  that 
came  so  easily  to  men's  lips  because  the  thing  came  so  easily  to 
their  hands  :    Poison  !    Siebenkees  rejects  this  theory.     "  No 
poison  was  wanting  to  accelerate  the  death  of  that  Princess,"  he 
gravely  says.     The   Grand  Duke   behaved   atrociously  at   her 
funeral.     He  showed  no  grief  whatever  ;  and  when  the  proces- 
sion was  passing  the  house  whence  Bianca  was  watching  it,  he 
glanced  up  at  the  window,  raised  eagerly  his  mourning-cap,  and 
bowed  low  to  her.     Directly  the  ceremony  was  over,  he  went  to 
a  party  at  her  house. 

But    troubles   were   growing   round    him.      The    House   of 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  31 

Austria  was  alienated  ;  Venice  was  still  irreconcilable ;  Florence 
was  in  a  turmoil  of  hate  and  suspicion.  His  advisers  urged 
a  separation  from  Bianca,  and  at  last  he  resolved  to  put  his 
conscience  into  the  hands  of  his  confessor.  After  a  heart- 
searching  talk,  he  actually  made  up  his  mind  to  go.  He  was 
to  leave  Florence  and  travel  for  a  while,  said  the  "  best  friends  " — 
who  then  of  course  proceeded  to  urge  a  willing  horse  too  far. 
They  had  got  him  away,  but  they  could  not  make  haste 
slowly :  they  began  to  talk  about  a  "  suitable  marriage."  It 
was  the  stupidest  thing  they  could  have  done.  For  Bianca  had 
not  been  idle.  With  her  extraordinary  subtlety,  she  had  made 
all  preparations  for  a  broken-hearted  departure  from  Francesco's 
dominions — preparations  of  which  we  may  be  sure  her  lover  was 
informed.  She  took  care  that  they  were  lengthy — they  lasted, 
in  fact,  until  Francesco  was  safely  back.  Then  came  a  dramatic 
pause.  Nothing  apparently  was  being  done.  Bianca's  agents 
were  busy  as  bees,  but  she  preserved  a  masterly  inactivity.  .  .  . 
Of  course  she  won  !  She  was  "  permitted  "  to  pay  a  visit  to  the 
Grand  Duke,  and  from  that  instant  her  enemies  were  scattered. 

At  the  end  of  May,  Fortune  dealt  to  her  the  woman's 
surest  winning  card.  Francesco  fell  ill.  She  nursed  him 
tenderly,  and  "he  loved  her  more  than  ever."  Siebenkees  has 
here  a  quaint  little  story  to  tell.  On  June  5,  Bianca  entered 
Francesco's  room  to  beg  him  to  eat  something.  He  said  he 
was  not  hungry. 

"  Well,"  replied  she,  "  accept  at  least  this  egg  from  me.  Eat 
it.     It  will  do  you  good." 

He  ate  the  egg  and  said,  instantly,  "I  feel  a  great  deal 
better;  and  I  thank  you  for  your  present."  Never,  indeed, 
had  the  costliest  gift  a  more  complete  success.  "Here,  take 
my  hand,"  cried  Francesco,  sitting  up  in  bed.  "You  are  my 
wife."     And  they  were  married  secretly  that  very  day !  .  .  . 

The  marriage  was  kept  profoundly  secret  during  the  mourn- 
ing, for  it  was  barely  two  months  since  Giovanna's  death. 
Ferdinand  heard  of  it,  but  he  took  it  quietly.  He  felt  sure 
that  Bianca  would  never  be  made  Grand  Duchess,  though 
Francesco  might  avow  her  as  his  wife — and  no  doubt  by  this 
time  the  exasperated  family  were  grateful  for  small  mercies. 


32  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

It  was  not  until  far  into  1579  that  the  secret  was  made 
public  property.  Francesco's  first  step  was  to  write  to  the  Doge 
of  Venice,  and  beg  him  to  get  the  Senate  to  confer  upon  Bianca 
the  title  of  Daughter  of  the  Republic.  (This  was  a  distinction 
invented  by  that  haughty  city ;  any  lady  who  obtained  it  took 
precedence  over  all  other  Italian  Princesses.)  His  letter  says 
with  amusing  ambiguity  that  Bianca's  "personal  conduct  has 
long  since  been  known  to  him,  and  in  every  respect  answers 
his  anticipations!"  .  .  .  All  went  well.  On  July  17,  1579, 
Bianca  Capello  was  created  a  Daughter  of  the  Republic,  and 
the  Republic  ensured  her  being  elevated  as  well  to  the  rank 
of  Grand  Duchess — not  merely  recognized  as  the  Prince's  wife. 
It  was  now  that,  in  recognition  of  the  new  status  of  the  lady, 
the  "  Ten  "  had  that  compromising  entry  in  the  Archives  erased. 


The  country  was  suffering  acute  distress,  and  the  people 
were  furious  at  the  outrageous  expenditure  upon  their  detested 
Bianca.  Florence  was  frantic  ;  there  were  pasquinades,  whisper- 
ings of  the  enmity  of  Austria,  the  scorn  of  other  lands.  .  .  . 
"  Quimporte  !  "  exclaims  Larousse,  with  irony.  "  Blanche  Halt 
enfin  Grande-Dtichesse  de  Toscane  !  " 

She  was ;  and  she  quickly  took  her  place  in  the  family- 
councils.  Her  story  for  some  years  now  is  that  of  the  mediator. 
She  played  the  engaging  and  exacting  part  with  conspicuous 
brilliancy  ;  but  her  chief  aim  was  the  winning  of  the  Florentine 
hearts.  For  she  was  abhorred,  and  she  knew  it.  Her  cruelty 
and  callousness  were  taken  for  granted :  there  was  a  tale  of 
a  half-crazy  old  woman,  luckless  enough  to  offend  her,  having 
been  flogged  so  violently  that  she  died  within  three  days. 
And  then  she  protected  spies,  she  was  surrounded  by  a  rabble 
of  quacks  and  mysterymongers,  she  drank  too  much.  .  .  .  The 
Florentines,  in  short,  could  not  endure  her.  Irreconcilable  they 
had  been,  and  irreconcilable  they  remained. 

In  1586,  Bianca  was  again  expectant  of  a  child,  or  reported 
to  be  so.  Perhaps  she  genuinely  was — but  we  cannot  wonder 
that  Ferdinand  was  suspicious !  Francesco  was  not ;  on  the 
contrary,  he  was  all  excitement,  and  as  sanguine  as  on  the  first 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  33 

occasion.  One  night,  horses  actually  stood  saddled  in  the 
courtyard  of  the  Villa,  to  carry  the  joyful  news  to  every 
quarter ;  but  all  was  vain.  Either  she  had  been  mistaken,  or 
else  the  means,  if  not  the  courage,  had  failed  her  to  attempt 
the  old  trick  of  the  Baby  in  the  Mandoline.  It  was  serious, 
for  Francesco  had  now  no  legitimate  heir.  Giovanna's  son  had 
died  in  1582.  In  1583,  the  supposititious  child  had  been 
legitimated.  This  was  a  preliminary  to  giving  him  the  succes- 
sion to  the  Grand  Duchy.  Still,  if  Bianca  could  achieve  a 
true-born  son,  how  much  the  better!  That  was  why  hopes 
and  fears  were  running  so  high  in  the  year  of  this  final 
disappointment. 

And  then,  once  more,  the  old  hostility  broke  out  between  the 
Grand  Duke  and  the  Cardinal.  Bianca  tried  her  hand  at  media- 
tion, used  her  finest  art,  and  apparently  succeeded.  The  brothers 
were  reconciled  by  letter  in  1587,  and  the  Cardinal  promised  to 
pay,  in  the  autumn,  a  visit  to  the  "  hunting-box  "  at  Poggio  a 
Cajano. 

He  arrived  in  the  beginning  of  October,  and  was  instantly 
plunged  into  a  vortex  of  festivities — the  culmination  of  which 
was  to  be  a  grand  banquet.  The  evening  came.  "  It  was  the 
loth  of  October,  1587.  Already  it  was  growing  very  late,  but 
the  party  was  still  at  table.  The  guests,  wearied  by  hunting, 
dancing,  by  all  the  pleasures  and  surprises  with  which  the 
bewildering  day  had  been  crowded,  were  awaiting  impatiently 
the  Grand  Duke's  signal  to  rise.  Bianca  alone  sat  wide-eyed 
and  radiant.  She  had  promised  herself  to  gain  the  heart  of 
her  enemy,  and  she  had  put  forth  all  her  powers,  all  the  magic 
of  her  subtle  feminine  nature  ;  she  had  been  lovely,  kind, 
witty,  irresistible !  That  was  why  her  eyes  were  sparkling,  why 
she  sat  there  radiant  and  compelling,  while  all  the  rest  were 
dim-eyed  and  fatigued  .  .  .  she  thought  that,  like  the  Egyptian 
Queen  of  old,  she  had  made  a  slave  of  him  who  was  against  her. 
AH  at  once,  while  still  she  smiles  and  talks,  she  feels  herself 
attacked  by  agonizing  internal  pains — her  mouth  foams,  her 
arms  writhe,  she  looks  appalled  and  appalling,  she  calls,  she 
cries — she  appeals  to  Francesco,  he  tries  to  go  to  her  aid  ;  but 
suddenly  he  himself  is  seized  by  the  same  terrible  anguish — and 
D 


34  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

some  hours  later,  both  she  and  he  breathe  their  last."  That  is 
the  story  as  told  by  Larousse — by  far  the  most  dramatic  version  ; 
and  the  more  so,  because  he  does  not  attenuate  by  any  attempt 
at  explanation.  The  reader  supplies  himself  with  the  word  of 
the  enigma,  as  the  populace  did  then — and  not  only  the  populace, 
but  the  most  sober  historians.  Litta  has  one  of  his  attractive 
obiter  dicta  upon  it :  "  Far  be  it  from  me  to  deny  or  affirm  the 
truth  of  all  this ;  but  I  cannot  hide  from  myself  the  fact  that,  in 
the  Family  of  the  Medici,  there  was  never  anything  very  extra- 
ordinary in  the  sudden  death  of  several  persons  at  the  same 
time." 

Poison,  of  course.  But  poison  by  whom,  for  whom  ?  Poison 
how  and  poison  where  ?  Let  us  see.  To  our  hand  comes 
another  fairy  tale  :  The  Story  of  the  Poisoned  Tart ! 

"  Bianca  put  poison  into  a  sort  of  tart,  of  which  she  had 
observed  the  Cardinal  particularly  fond.  Ferdinand  either 
suspected  or  had  secretly  discovered  her  design.  He  declined 
tasting  the  tart.  The  more  she  pressed,  the  more  he  excused 
himself.  Francesco,  hearing  the  tart  so  much  commended,  ate  of 
it  plentifully.  Bianca,  seeing  her  plot  take  a  wrong  turn  .  .  . 
ate  up  the  remainder."  * 

That  is  one  story — and  an  extremely  lame  one.  Bianca  was 
no  blunderer.  Would  she  have  blundered  so  ridiculously  as 
this }  To  poison  food  and  let  her  husband  instead  of  the  in- 
tended victim  gorge  on  it — finally,  panic-stricken,  to  gorge  on  it 
herself!  Crafty,  resourceful,  daring,  she  had  been  throughout 
her  whole  career,  and  now  she  was  to  lose  her  head,  turn 
coward  !  This  is  not  Bianca.  .  .  .  But  to  work  by  the  surer 
method,  that  of  motive,  what  had  she  to  gain  ?  True,  Ferdinand 
was  her  enemy,  he  knew  of  her  trick  with  the  base-born  child ; 
but  neither  seems  sufficient  reason  for  running  such  tremendous 
risk.  He  was  not  even  Francesco's  only  brother  ;  Pietro,  as 
hostile  and  far  more  violent,  was  ready  to  take  up  the  part  of 
foe.     There  is  no  evidence  against  Bianca :  the  thing  was  too 

*  'Ferdinand  was  said  to  wear  always  on  his  finger  a  ring  set  with  a  stone 
which  turned  colour  when  near  to  any  sort  of  poison.  "These  rings," 
remarks  one  writer,  drily,  "  are  like  the  Phcenix,  which  is  said  to  exist,  but 
which  no  one  has  ever  seen." 


BIANCA   CAPELLO  35 

clumsily  done  to  be  her  work,  and  there  was  not  sufficient  motive 
for  her  doing  it. 

But  there  is  another  version  of  the  story — and  this  one 
attributes  the  deed  to  Ferdinand.  He  had  noticed  that 
Francesco  was  addicted  to  the  dish,  and  he  bribed  the  cook  to 
poison  it.  Plausibility,  at  any  rate,  this  does  possess  ;  and  it  is 
almost  confirmed  by  Ferdinand's  conduct  when  the  pair  had 
eaten  and  succumbed.  They  were  taken  to  a  gloomy  room  near 
the  banqueting-hall,  laid  on  couches — and  left  entirely  alone. 
The  door  was  locked,  no  physician  was  summoned :  it  was 
indeed  forbidden  to  summon  one.  A  post-mortem  examination 
was  insisted  on  by  the  Cardinal,  and  carried  out  in  the  presence 
of  Bianca's  daughter,  Pellegrina,  and  her  husband  ;  but  this,  as 
Trollope  points  out,  is  rather  a  damning  than  a  helpful  point, 
"  for  the  medical  science  of  the  time  was  wholly  incompetent  to 
conduct  a  post-mortem  ...  and  Pellegrina  and  her  husband 
would  have  been  none  the  wiser,  in  any  case,  for  seeing  the 
body  opened." 

Motive  here  is  immensely  powerful.  Bianca  had  been  a 
thorn  in  Ferdinand's  side  for  years.  His  family's  prestige  was 
diminishing,  not  only  on  her  account,  but  also  on  that  of 
Francesco's  eccentricities  and  blunders.  The  passion  of  Ferdi- 
nand's life  was  the  Family.  Could  he  contemplate  calmly  the 
almost  certain  elevation  of  the  base-born  boy  to  the  reigning 
place  in  it,  when  he  knew  himself  to  be  the  rightful  heir  .?  .  .  .  If 
such  problems  be  judged  by  motive,  and  if  there  were  poison  in 
the  tart,  it  was  Ferdinand  who  put  it  there. 

But  the  truth  is  that  nobody  knows  whether  there  was  or 
not — not  even  Cigogna !  The  official  report  was  that  the 
Grand  Duke  died  on  October  19  of  a  tertian  fever,  brought  on 
by  fatigue,  and  rendered  fatal  by  his  refusal  to  submit  to  proper 
medical  treatment ;  and  that  Bianca  died  on  the  following 
morning  of  a  similar  complaint,  complicated  by  the  mischief  she 
had  long  since  done  to  her  system. 

Ferdinand's  behaviour  to  the  dead  woman  was  atrocious. 
He  was  asked  at  Florence  whether  Bianca's  body  should  be 
publicly  exposed  beside  that  of  Francesco,  bearing  the  crown  to 
which  she  was   entitled.     He   answered  :  "  She  has   worn  the 


S6  BIANCA   CAPELLO 

crown  long  enough.  .  .  .  Proceed  with  respect  to  her  funeral  as 
you  please,  but  we  will  not  have  her  among  our  dead."  Her 
body  was  therefore  deposited  in  the  great  common  vault  of  the 
Church  of  San  Lorenzo — "  with  two  yellow  wax  torches  beside 
it."  *  Her  escutcheon  was  taken  down  from  the  public  buildings, 
and  that  of  Giovanna  substituted ;  all  pictures  and  medals  of 
her  were  suppressed  in  Florence ;  and  Ferdinand  gave  her 
publicly  the  epithet  of  The  Detestable  Bianca  {La  Pessima 
Bianca). 

So  it  ends — the  confused  and  enigmatic  story!  "-£  nonfu 
pianto"  says  Litta  of  Francesco.  "  He  was  not  lamented " : 
grimmest  of  all  epitaphs,  yet  too  kindly  for  La  Pessima  Bianca. 
Florence  openly  exulted  in  her  death — epigrams  and  satires 
whizzed  about  the  city,  nothing  was  too  bad  to  say,  and  the 
pasquinaders  were  encouraged  in  the  highest  quarters.  ...  It 
could  not  have  been  otherwise.  Looking  back  from  our  long 
view-point,  we  perceive  no  ray  of  moral  sunlight  in  the  later 
character  of  this  beautiful,  able  woman.  Others,  as  unlovable, 
have  left  as  stained  a  page — 43ut  few  so  sordid  a  one.  Nearly 
always  there  has  been  some  motive,  some  impulse,  not  entirely 
ignoble  ;  a  creed,  a  policy,  a  personal  passion,  has  softened  our 
judgment,  let  the  light  in,  as  it  were.  The  ugliness  here  is  that 
of  moral  squalor.  We  do  not  feel,  as  we  read,  that  the  story 
is  one  of  a  Prince  and  a  great  Courtesan.  We  feel  that  it  is  a 
story  of  two  people,  highly  placed,  who  had  no  personal  or 
moral  dignity.     The  word  "  vulgarity  "  hovers  on  our  lips.  .  .  . 

*  Yellow  wax  torches  were  the  cheapest  and  worst.  Sanseverino 
declares  that  her  body  was  exposed  ''hme  et  Uhevelie^^  but  this,  one  fancies, 
may  be  very  strongly  doubted. 


GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES 

1571-1599    > 

THIS  is  one  of  those  love-stories — always  the  most  attrac- 
tive to  posterity — where  the  personal  magnetism  of  the 
man  concerned  is  all,  or  nearly  all.  Of  Gabrielle 
d'Estrees  the  supreme  distinction  is  that  Henry  of  Navarre 
adored  her.  She  was  gay  and  sweet  and  lovely — serene, 
insouciante ;  "  light  as  a  bird  in  its  winged  roundness,  lively  as 
a  lark,  she  exhilarated,  distracted,  consoled — and  she  never 
needed  consolation." 

Clever  in  that,  at  any  rate — for  the  Vagabond  King  would 
not  have  been  good  at  the  task :  he  too  often  needed  consolation 
himself!  Melancholy  was  a  foe  which  he  loved  to  escape  from 
when  he  came  to  his  chhes  amours ;  and  if  it  had  to  intrude 
upon  the  visit,  he  preferred  bringing  it  with  him  to  finding  it 
established  for  his  arrival.  Thus  Gabrielle  d'Estrees,  with  her 
sunny,  careless  nature,  might  have  been  made  for  him.  She  did 
not  exact,  she  "  disdained  to  dominate " — it  was  such  hard 
work !  Now  and  then,  she  would  feel  the  prick  of  personal 
ambition — for  her  lover  she  felt  it  always,  and  finely — but  to 
plot  and  plan  for  herself  was  too  tedious  ;  she  could  not  keep  it 
up.  The  secret  of  life  was  to  enjoy  life.  She  instinctively  thus 
rejected  that  customary  attitude  of  the  Royal  mistress — which 
indeed  continually  strikes  one  as  the  most  discomfortable  in  the 
world — of  a  watchful,  avid,  ever-encroaching  domination,  a 
secret  waiting  for  some  tardy  triumph,  a  tireless  averting  of 
unformulated  dangers.  .  .  .  That  was  not  for  Gabrielle ;  and  it 
was  through  her  very  slackness,  her  delicious,  easy  laissez-alleVy 
that  with  this  lover  she  was  bound  to  prevail. 

Henry  was  of  all  men  the  one  who  could  least  be  driven. 

37 


38  GABRIELLE   DESTREES 

Being  driven  implies  a  certain  amount  of  dulness  in  companion- 
ship ;  of  argumentations,  tiffs,  maussaderies.  The  Gascon  winced 
from  all  that  as  a  wild  pony  winces  from  harness,  and  his  jump 
aside  would  have  taken  so  wide  a  range  that  a  cross  mistress 
would,  in  an  hour,  have  found  him  for  ever  out  of  reach  of  the 
collar.* 

They  were  absolutely  suited  to  one  another — that  is  the 
secret  really.  Gabrielle  needed  only  to  be  herself ;  Henry  would 
have  been  himself  in  any  case.  No  one  ever  did  make  any  real 
change  in  him.  Whether  she  saw  that  or  not  is  conjectural. 
Probably  not.  She  simply  did  what  pleased  her  best,  and  it 
pleased  her  best  to  please  :  she  was  one  of  those  most  fortunate 
— and  most  desirable — women. 


They  met  first  in  1590,  or  the  beginning  of  1591,  when 
Gabrielle  was  between  nineteen  and  twenty,  and  Henry  thirty- 
seven,  for  he  was  born  on  December  13,  1553. 

Romance  and  moral  squalor  contend  sadly  in  the  story  of 
their  coming  together.  The  girl's  early  surroundings  were 
deplorable.  Her  mother,  Frangoise  Babou  de  la  Bourdaisi^re, 
was  a  type  of  the  disreputable  great  lady.  She  came  of  a  race 
oifemmes  galantes  ;  and  poor  honest  Antoine  d'Estrees  had  been 
fool  enough  to  marry  her.  She  ran  away  from  him  in  the  end 
with  the  Marquis  d'Alegre,  Governor  of  Issoire ;  f  but  he  had 
many  years  of  her  companionship  before  that,  for  they  had 
eight  children — six  girls  and  two  boys,  and  Gabrielle,  the  third 
daughter,  was  twenty-one  and  had  left  home  for  Court,  before 
a  mother's  tender  care  was  withdrawn  from  the  Chateau  de 
Coeuvres,  the  d'Estrees'  ancestral  castle  near  the  Eure,  between 
Soissons  and  Laon. 

*  This  is  clearly  shown  by  the  tone  of  his  love-letters  to  the  much  less 
adaptable  Henriette  d'Entragues,  who  succeeded  Gabrielle  in  his  versatile 
affections — 

"  You  must  give  up  these  tempers,  if  you  wish  to  keep  my  love,  for  as 
King  and  as  Gascon  I  cannot  tolerate  them.  Besides,  men  who  love 
devotedly,  as  I  do,  like  to  be  flattered  and  not  abused." 

t  They  were  both  killed  by  an  enraged  and  scandalized  populace  in  a 
rising  at  Issoire  in  1593. 


GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES  39 

Madame's  care  for  her  daughters  consisted  in  finding  them 
lovers,  and  those  the  most  profitable  to  the  family  that  could 
be  procured.  In  Bassompierre's  very  scandalous  M^moires- 
Journaux — a  book  of  doubtful  authenticity,  yet  not  wholly 
despised  by  Sainte-Beuve — we  are  told  that  the  six  d'Estr^es  girls 
and  their  brother  *  were  known  as  the  Seven  Deadly  Sins  ;  and 
that  Gabrielle,  at  sixteen,  was  offered  by  her  mother  through 
the  Due  d'Epernon  (one  of  the  famous  Mignons)^  to  Henri 
III.,  the  last  Valois  King,  and  Henry  of  Navarre's  predecessor 
on  the  French  throne.  "  He  quickly  tired  of  her."  .  .  .  She  then 
passed  through  several  hands  (if  Bassompierre  be  believed), 
until  the  Due  de  Bellegarde,  Grand  Ecuyer  of  France,  appeared 
triumphantly  upon  the  scene  of  her  love-affairs. 

Roger  de  Saint-Lary,  Due  de  Bellegarde,  was  one  of  the  most 
attractive  men  of  his  time.  No  woman  had  ever  been  known  to 
resist  him.  When  he  came  to  Coeuvres,  on  the  report  of  a  friend 
of  the  d'Estrees  family,  to  see  la  belle  Gabrielle^  he  left  behind 
him  at  Mantes  a  devoted  and  lovely  lady,  who  had  nursed  him 
through  a  serious  illness — Madame  d'Humieres,  destined  to  be 
robbed  more  than  once  of  her  lovers  by  the  too-ravishing 
Mademoiselle  d'Estrees.  .  .  .  Bellegarde  came  to  Coeuvres,  and 
"was  shut  up  for  two  days  with  Madame  Gabrielle."  This  was 
evidently  a  new  experience  in  facility,  even  for  him,  since  on  his 
return  to  Mantes  he  was  so  uplifted  that  he  told  Henry  all  about 
it.  He  was  well  punished,  in  the  end,  for  his  boasting.  Inex- 
tinguishable curiosity  was  a  mark  of  Henry's  galanterie\  the 
next  time  Bellegarde  wanted  to  visit  Coeuvres,  his  sovereign 
insisted  on  going  with  him. 

Henry  saw  the  vaunted  lady,  and  was  profoundly  impressed. 
But  he  could  not  stay  ;  "  glory  called  him  elsewhere  " — with 
warring  sighs  and  groans  he  left  her.  He  did  not  forget, 
though  ;  and  soon  she  was  fetched  to  Mantes.  She  made  a 
fresh  conquest  directly  she  got  there.  This  was  Henri  d' Orleans, 
Due  de  Longueville.  Alas !  it  was  he  who  had  replaced 
Bellegarde,  during  his  absence  at  Coeuvres,  with  Madame 
d'Humieres.  .  .  .  "Longueville  always  loved  the  nearest  fair," 
says  the  author  of  Les  Amours  du  Grand  Alcantre.  Bellegarde 
*  One  son  died  young. 


40  GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES 

oscillated  between  the  two.  ...  It  is  a  sordid  story;  and  the 
one  man  who  could  cut  the  ugly  knot  was  nearly  always  away 
from  Court.  Henry,  in  a  word,  was  busy  and  absent.  The  lady 
was  there  by  his  arrangement,  yet  it  was  others  who  wooed  her> 
enjoyed  her  favours.  .  .  .  Intolerable !  He  came  back,  and 
played  the  sovereign  as  well  as  the  lover.  "  No  one  shall  share 
you  with  me."  That  was  a  bomb-shell.  The  lovers  were  dis- 
concerted ;  the  lady  was  furious.  She  said  she  would  not  be 
anybody's  slave,  violence  was  not  the  way  to  make  a  woman 
love  you,  and  so  forth — and  she  acted  on  her  words,  for  she  went 
straight  home,  without  saying  good-bye  to  the  unhappy  tyrant. 
He  was  thunderstruck.  The  only  thing  to  do  was  to  follow 
her.  But  it  was  dangerous  for  him  to  travel  alone  in  that  dis- 
affected country  ;  there  were  seven  leagues  to  go ;  and  how 
could  he  take  an  escort  on  such  an  errand  ?  He  thought  it  over, 
then  decided  quickly,  as  his  manner  was.  Nothing  more  hateful 
to  Henry  than  the  against ;  he  cared  only  to  see  the  for — one 
thing  was  enough  at  a  time  !  He  went  ;  and  he  took  his  escort 
with  him,  but  dismissed  it  when  they  got  within  three  leagues  of 
the  Castle.  Directly  he  was  alone,  he  dismounted,  put  on  a 
peasant's  dress,  took  a  sackful  of  straw  on  his  shoulders,  and 
in  this  preposterous  fashion  reached  the  gates  of  Coeuvres. 
Gabrielle  was  in  a  gallery  with  her  sister,  Madame  de  Villars ; 
she  saw  the  uncouth  figure,  recognized  it  as  the  King  of 
Navarre — and  was  desperately  annoyed,  as  any  woman  must 
have  been.  She  told  him  so  distinctly.  "You  are  so  hideous 
that  I  can't  bear  to  look  at  you,"  was  her  winding-up.  Poor 
Henry !  He  stood,  clasping  his  sack,  rueful,  appealing,  pitiable 
now,  because  so  utterly  crestfallen;  but  the  irritated  girl 
was  ruthless.  Perhaps  she  was  all  the  angrier  because  she 
had  fallen  a  little  in  love  with  him,  and  now  there  he  was, 
looking  so  ridiculous  .  .  .  and  so  ugly.  She  turned  away  in 
disgust.  "Go  and  change  your  clothes."  He  obediently  and 
no  doubt  gladly  did  so,  but  she  did  not  await  his  return. 
She  disappeared,  shut  herself  up  in  her  room  (where  she 
probably  shed  some  indignant  tears),  and  left  the  entertain- 
ment of  him  to  her  sister.  He  went  back  to  Mantes  next  day 
— sad,  but  not  despairing.     Madame  de  Villars  was  subtle,  we 


GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES 

FROM    A   CRAYON    DRAWING 


GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES  41 

may  guess,  and  had  given  him  a  few  psychological,  consoling 
hints. 

His  next  attempt  was  much  more  kingly.  He  made 
Antoine  d'Estrees  Governor  of  the  Ile-de-France  and  member 
of  the  Royal  Council.  This  brought  the  d'Estrees  family  to  the 
Court,  which  was  still  at  Mantes.  There  the  old  complications 
threatened  to  begin  again,  but  Gabrielle's  heart  was  touched 
genuinely  at  last,  and  she  was  content  to  be  tolerably  faithful  to 
her  impetuous,  foolish  Henry.  Bellegarde  did  not  easily  accept 
the  change  ;  but  de  Longueville,  "  thinking  of  his  future,"  asked 
her  to  return  his  love-letters,  promising  to  return  hers  at  the 
same  time.  She  was  quite  amused — she  sent  them  back  at  once 
in  a  bundle,  but  he  kept  the  tenderest  ones  of  hers.  She  never 
forgave  him  that.  She  resolved  to  revenge  herself,  and  how 
easily  she  could !  De  Longueville  had  not  thought  deeply 
enough  about  his  future.  He  soon  found  himself  obliged  to 
leave  Court ;  he  joined  the  disloyal  party,  and  was  killed  by 
a  shot  in  the  head  at  the  entrance  to  the  town  of  Durlens  in 
1 595.     "  A insifinit  le  due  de  Longtceville pour  avoir  Hi  trop  fin!' 

Henry  had  got  his  way,  as  he  had  the  trick  of  doing  ;  and 
now  that  the  love-affair  is  a  settled  thing,  it  is  time  to  regard 
the  lovers  with  the  eyes  of  a  personal  curiosity.  What  did  they 
look  like  ?  Her  description  sounds  like  that  of  the  heroine  in 
some  romantic,  over-charged  novel — golden  hair,  big  blue  eyes, 
pink-and-white  complexion,  rosebud  mouth,  pearly  teeth.  .  .  . 

"  All  the  face  composed  of  flowers,  we  say  ! " 

"  Elle  Hait  blanche  et  blonde!'  murmurs  Sainte-Beuve,  musically  : 
astonishingly  fair  she  truly  is  in  the  Sainte-Genevieve  portrait — 
only  the  faintest  rose-colour  in  the  round  fresh  cheeks.  Her 
big  blue  eyes  had  a  vague  look  in  them,  "a  kind  of  sweet 
indecision  which  charmed,  but  did  not  reassure,"  says  Michelet, 
who  always  takes  back  with  one  hand  what  he  gives  Gabrielle 
with  the  other !  She  was  very  slender  when  Henry  first  saw 
her,  but  she  grew  matronly  with  time.  Lescure  supplies  the 
last  little  stroke.  "  Her  pretty  double-chin — one  of  the  seven 
beauties'' \  how  Gallic  that  is,  with  its  air  of  the  expert  in 
feminine  charms ! 


42  GABRIELLE  D^ESTREES 

And  he?  The  winning  face  confronts  us  vividly  in  the 
Porbus  group  of  pictures,  and  we  feel  that  we  know  the  very 
sound  of  the  voice,  clasp  of  the  hand,  of  him  who  was  so  much 
more  always  of  the  Man  than  of  the  King.  The  lovable,  de- 
lightful man  !  writer  of  some  of  the  most  exquisite  love-letters 
that  were  ever  penned  ;  Gascon,  soldier,  good  fellow  ;  crammed 
with  faults,  fickle,  forgetful,  mocking,  mobile  ;  loving  to  laugh, 
to  love,  to  live  ;  untidy,  never  able  to  be  pompous,  too  well  able 
to  be  easy  ;  utterly  spontaneous,  yet  so  supple  that  he  seemed 
often  to  be  crafty — promising,  breaking ;  loving,  forgetting ; 
laughing,  weeping  ;  instinct  with  the  gaiety  of  the  charmer  of 
men  who  knows  his  power  well,  "  the  man  of  short  stories,  long 
meals,  warm  kisses  "...  was  there  ever  a  more  human,  a  more 
vital,  creature  on  God's  earth  than  Henry  of  Navarre !  He 
would  consult  his  Ministers  upon  some  knotty  problem — such  as 
his  own  marriage  with  Gabrielle! — walking  up  and  down  a 
garden  or  gallery,  with  his  fingers  entwined  in  theirs,  "which 
was  his  custom."  Sometimes  they  would  preserve  an  attitude 
of  aloofness,  and  then  the  King  would  turn  nervous,  and  leave 
the  matter  untouched  except  by  hints,  "which  they  did  not 
afifect  to  understand."  *  He  seemed,  in  short,  unable  to  be 
anything  but  lovable  when  he  was  with  a  fellow-creature,  and 
when  he  wrote  to  a  fellow-creature — no  matter  about  what — he 
was  more  lovable  still. 

Tall,  with  a  well-developed  figure  and  the  Gascon  face- 
nose  impossibly  long,  brow  high,  eyes  large,  sparkling,  well- 
opened  ("incomparable  instruments  of  sensibility,"  remarks 
Michelet)  ;  his  mouth  at  once  tender  and  mocking,  his  bright 
black  hair  not  too  carefully  kept,  his  beard  long,  and  beginning 
to  turn  grey  :  such  he  was  to  see  when  Gabrielle  saw  him  first. 
Poor  he  was  then,  surrounded  by  motley  troops,  living  from 
hand-to-mouth.  King  only  of  Navarre,  and  even  that  a  mere 
title  of  honour,  for  Spain  occupied  the  kingdom  until  1594.     In 

*  His  conversation  with  Sully  in  the  garden  at  Rennes  (1598)  was  one 
like  this  :  no  more  delicious  bit  of  historical  comedy  exists.  It  may  be  read 
in  Sully's  wonderful  Memoirs,  or  in  most  of  the  longer  books  dealing  with 
Gabrielle  d'Estrdes  ;  Sainte-Beuve  has  an  excellent  summary  in  his  Causeries 
du  Lundi:  Gabrielle  d Estr^es  (August  8,  1852  . 


FROM    AN   ENGRAVING   AFTER   THE   PICTURE    BY   FRANCOIS   PORBUS 


►  ,*■  *>  *«e  '      *    *"? 


c        ».    «« 


GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES  43 

lat  year  many  of  his  horses  had  to  be  sold  because  there  was 
"no  money  to  buy  fodder.  He  had  a  dozen  shirts,  and  some  of 
them  were  torn  ;  eight  handkerchiefs  he  had  proudly  counted  on, 
but  his  valet  had  to  confess  that  there  were  only  five  now. 
Some  Flemish  linen  had,  however,  been  ordered,  and  more 
would  soon  be  ready.  "  That's  a  good  thing,"  said  His  Majesty, 
cheerily.  .  .  . 

Gabrielle  must  have  genuinely  loved  him.  She  was  with 
him  through  all  this  desperate  struggle ;  her  tenderness  and  her 
tact  were  unfailing.  A  contemporary  historian  has  shown  us 
where  her  power  lay.  "He  confided  to  her  all  his  affairs,  he 
showed  her  all  the  troubles  of  his  mind,  and  she  soothed  his 
pain,  she  never  rested  until  the  cause  of  it  was  removed,  until 
any  offence  was  smoothed  over  ...  so  that  those  at  Court 
confessed  that  this  great  favour,  dangerous  in  that  imperious 
sex,  helped  many  and  oppressed  none — and  many  rejoiced  in 
her  good  fortune." 


Antoine  d'Estrees,  soon  after  his  establishment  at  Court,  began 
to  make  himself  troublesome.  Knowing  of  what  the  women 
of  his  wife's  family  were  capable,  he  threatened  to  remove  her 
daughter  from  Henry's  attentions.  There  was  only  one  means 
of  emancipating  Gabrielle  from  his  authority — to  get  her  married. 
She  was  unwilling.  The  candidate  was  Nicolas  d'Amerval, 
sieur  de  Liancourt,  a  very  ugly  widower  with  fourteen  children, 
rich,  and  of  distinguished  family.  But  the  King  promised  that 
Liancourt  should  be  her  husband  only  in  name  ;  he  himself 
would  come  on  the  wedding-day  and  take  her  away — so  she 
allowed  herself  at  last  to  be  persuaded.  Absent,  busy,  forgetful 
— which  was  it }  At  any  rate,  Henry  did  not  come.  .  .  .  The 
pair  were  then  summoned  to  Court.  Henry  was  just  leaving  for 
Chartres,  and  Madame  de  Liancourt  went  with  him.  The 
husband  "philosophically  retired,"  and  it  was  not  very  long 
before  the  marriage  was  declared  null  and  void.* 

The  anecdotists  and  scribbling  poets  were  busy,  of  course. 

*  Liancourt  accepted  damages.  Lescure  delightfully  comments  :  "  Le 
mot  finest  pas  du  temps ;  mats  la  chose  est  de  tons  les  temps  P'* 


44  GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES 

Obscene  little  rhymes  were  flying  about  Liancourt's  adventure  ; 
the  antechambers  were  murmurous  with  malicious  histoires 
galantes  about  the  irresistible  Bellegarde.  Of  him,  Henry  was 
openly  jealous  :  his  letters  to  Gabrielle  are  full  of  it — 

"You  know  the  resolution  I  have  made — not  to  complain 
any  more.  And  now  I'll  make  another :  not  to  be  cross  any 
more." 

He  was  not  always  so  docile,  though.  "  If  I  had  known  of 
my  competitor  (the  Due  de  Bellegarde)  what  I  learnt  after  being 
at  Saint-Denis,  on  that  journey  you  know  of,  I  should  not  have 
seen  you  again — I  should  have  broken  with  you  there  and  then." 
And  again  :  "  There  must  be  no  more  of  this  saying  :  '  /  will^ 
really'     You  must  say :  *  /  have  done  it!  "... 

But  even  over  that  he  had  to  joke  at  times.  He  loved  to 
mock  at  his  rivals.  He  would  call  Bellegarde  "  Dead-Leaf"  on 
account  of  his  sallow  complexion  ;  and  the  story-makers  had 
one  tale  so  comically  characteristic  that,  true  or  not,  it  deserves 
telling. 

"  The  King  once  came  so  suddenly  into  Madame  de  Lian- 
court's  room  that  M.  de  Bellegarde,  who  was  already  there,  could 
not  hide  so  alertly  under  the  bed  but  that  the  King  caught  sight 
of  him."  Nothing,  however,  was  said,  and  the  Royal  collation 
was  served  as  usual.  Henry,  with  a  malicious  glance  at  Gabrielle, 
suddenly  threw  a  partridge  under  the  bed.  She  was  discon- 
certed beyond  measure,  but  he  laughed,  saying,  "  Ilfaut  que  tout 
le  monde  vive  !  " 

At  any  rate,  Bellegarde  was  the  only  rival ;  and  finally  he 
was  banished  from  Court,  and  ordered  not  to  reappear  there 
unmarried.  He  could  not  keep  away  from  the  headquarters  of 
gaiety,  so  he  "  very  quickly  "  married  a  Mademoiselle  de  Beuil, 
and  settled  down  as  a  model  husband. 

Henry's  jealousy  dissipated,  there  was  no  cloud  in  the  blue 
sky,  nor  any  in  the  blue  eyes  of  the  sunny,  fickle  lady.  Let  us 
read  some  of  the  enchanting  love-letters  he  wrote  her — those 
'*  little  masterpieces  of  winged  grace,"  with  their  refrain,  "  Je  votis 
baise  un  million  de  fois^'  and  the  names  of  love  so  cunningly 
varied  :  Mes  chhes  amours^  Mon  Menon^  Mon  tout ;  Dear  Heart, 
True  Heart,  mon  vrai  cceur,  ... 


GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES  45 

"  My  Beautiful  Love,--Two  hours  after  the  arrival  of  this 
messenger,  you  will  see  a  cavalier  who  loves  you  very  much  ; 
they  call  him  the  King  of  France  and  of  Navarre,  an  honourable 
title  certainly,  but  very  troublesome — that  of  your  subject  is  much 
more  delightful ;  the  three  together  are  good  with  any  sauce,  and  I 
am  resolved  to  give  them  up  to  no  one.  (This  I2th  September, 
from  our  delicious  deserts  of  Fontainebleau.) " 

"  My  True  Heart,  .  .  .  You  declare  that  you  love  me  a 
thousand  times  more  than  I  love  you.  You  have  lied,  and  you 
shall  maintain  your  lie  with  the  arms  which  you  have  chosen  ...  I 
shall  not  see  you  for  ten  days — it  is  enough  to  kill  me.  I  will 
not  tell  you  how  much  I  mind  :  it  would  make  you  too  vain." 

Here  is  a  little  bird-note  for  the  Spring :  "  March  isi.  The 
fields  are  much  sweeter  than  the  town.  Good-morning,  my  all !  " 
And  again  :  "  This  letter  is  short,  so  that  you  may  go  to  sleep 
again  after  reading  it.  Good-night  for  me — good-morning  for 
you,  my  dear,  dear  mistress." 

"  My  Darling  Love, — You  have  much  more  reason  to  be 
afraid  of  my  loving  you  too  much  than  too  little.  That  fault 
pleases  you — and  me  too,  since  you  like  it.  See  how  I  yield  to 
your  every  wish !  Don't  I  deserve  to  be  loved  }  And  I  think 
you  love  me,  and  so,  with  a  happy  heart,  I  finish." 

These  radiant  things,  like  the  singing-birds  of  Badroulbadour, 
followed  their  Princess  wherever  she  went. 


In  1594,  Henry  entered  Paris  after  the  long  siege,  "on  a 
dapple-grey  horse,  wearing  a  grey  velvet  habit  stiff  with  gold, 
a  grey  hat  with  the  White  Plume  of  Navarre,  and  his  face  all 
laughter,  delighted  to  see  the  crowds  cheering  so  wildly :  Vive 
le  roi  !  He  had  his  hat  for  ever  in  his  hand,  principally  to  salute 
the  ladies  who  filled  every  window.  .  .  .  He  specially  saluted 
three  very  pretty  ones  in  mourning.  .  .  .  Madame  de  Liancourt 
went  a  little  before  him,  in  a  magnificent  open  litter,  so  loaded 
with  pearls  and  precious  stones  that  she  dimmed  the  light  of  the 


46  GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES 

torches  ;  and  she  had  on  a  dress  of  black  satin,  all  tufted  with 
white."  * 

Maitresse-en-titre.  It  was  official  now,  and  soon  afterwards 
she  was  made  Marquise  de  Monceaux.  Her  son,  Cesar,  was 
given  the  title  of  Monsieur,  hitherto  reserved  only  for  the  true 
enfants  de  France.  She  began  then  to  understand  personal 
ambition — womanly  as  ever,  it  was  with  her  child  that  that  first 
came  to  her.  Henry  adored  little  C^sar.  He  would  take  him 
to  the  Fair  at  Saint-Germain,  trot  him  round  the  booths,  buy 
him  silver  sweetmeat-boxes,  or  consult  profoundly  with  the 
tiny  fellow  over  the  buying  of  a  ring  for  his  mother.  Sainte- 
Beuve  has  noted  this  trait  in  Henry,  so  apparently  incongruous 
with  his  extreme  volatility  ;  "  but  he  was  inconstant  only  at  the 
promptings  of  the  senses  and  of  occasion.  He  had  in  him  much 
of  the  *  good  husband,'  of  the  phe  defamille,  who  loves  his  own 
fireside.  He  needed  fidelity,  and  the  habitude  de  logis ;  he 
delighted  in  playing  with  children."  . .  .  And  Gabrielle,  with 
her  sweet  facility,  "  never  scolding  nor  nagging,"  was  the  right 
woman  for  him  to  marry.  As  a  private  person,  it  would  have 
been  the  best  thing  he  could  do.  And  as  a  dynastic  question, 
we  may  well  ask  ourselves  if  the  Vendomes  could  have  been 
more  harmful  to  France  than  the  Bourbons  eventually  were ! 

In  1595,  the  boy  was  legitimated. 

It  was  the  thin  edge  of  the  wedge :  from  that  time  the  idea  of 
marrying  her  got  firm  hold  of  him.  He  took  her  to  Rouen  for 
the  Assembly  of  Notables  in  1596;  and  she  was  present,  though 
hidden  behind  an  arras,  when  he  made  that  famous  harangue 
where  he  offered  to  "  put  himself  as  a  pupil  in  their  hands,"  with 
its  passionate,  moving  peroration.  .  .  .  He  asked  her  how  she 
liked  it.  She  answered  that  "  she  never  heard  any  one  speak  so 
well,  but  she  was  amazed  to  hear  him  talk  of  being  a  pupil." 
"  Ventre-saint-gris  !  "  cried  Henry,  who  never  missed  an  oppor- 
tunity for  his  favourite  oath,  "  it  is  true  ;  but  I  mean  it  with  my 
sword  at  my  side  ! " 

With  her  increasing  power,  though,  there  came  unpopularity, 
especially  in  Paris,  where  all  had  not  been  well  since  the 
triumphant  entry.    Famine  and  sickness  devastated  the  city  ;  the 

♦  Journal  de  VEstoille. 


GABRIELLE  D'ESTREES  47 

sky  was  leaden,  rain  poured  incessantly,  and  the  mob,  turned 
superstitious,  called  it  all  the  Punishment  of  Heaven,  for  enter- 
taining a  heretic  and  excommunicant.  Yet  through  the  gloom 
the  gay,  extravagant  Court-life  went  on,  and  haggard  eyes 
watched  enviously  from  furtive  corners. 

"On  Friday,  March  17,  1595,  there  was  a  great  thunderstorm 
at  Paris  .  .  .  during  which  the  King  was  hunting  in  the  environs 
with  his  Gabrielle,  newly  made  Marquise  de  Monceaux.  Side  by 
side  with  the  King  she  was,  and  he  was  holding  her  hand.  She 
was  riding  astride,  dressed  all  in  green  ;  *  and  she  came  back 
with  him  to  Paris,  like  that."  t  Unpopularity  is  plainly  written 
between  those  lines,  and  I'Estoille  stood  for  the  man  in  the 
street :  what  he  wrote,  that  personage  was  safe  to  be  thinking. 

This  kind  of  odium,  however,  is  the  common  lot  of  favourites. 
Gabrielle  now  unfortunately  made  for  herself  a  private  foe. 

Maximilien  de  B^thune,  Due  de  Sully,  Marquis  de  Rosny, 
was  Henry's  favourite  Minister,  and  it  has  been  asserted  by 
some  that  he  owed  his  high  position  to  Gabrielle's  early  in- 
fluence.}: But  she  alienated  him  by  obtaining  for  her  father — 
"flagrantly  incapable" — the  Grand  Mastership  of  Artillery,  a 
post  which  Sully  (then  known  as  Rosny)  ardently  desired. 
Moreover,  he  was  the  type  of  man  who  takes  a  perverted  pride 
of  honour  in  biting  the  hand  which  has  fed  him.  To  be  known 
as  rhomme  de  Gabrielle  would  have  been  wormwood  to  Sully, 
who  piqued  himself  on  being  nobody's  creature,  not  even  the 
King's.  Economical,  orderly,  indefatigable,  he  had  all  the  dis- 
comfortable  virtues;  his  idea  of  his  own  importance  was  over- 
weening ;  but  of  his  whole-souled  devotion  to  Henry  there  can 
be  no  doubt.  They  were  bound  to  one  another  in  a  quite 
peculiar  affection — Henry  was  the  very  core  of  Sully's  heart. 
The  King  soon  found  himself  between  the  devil  and  the  deep 
sea.  "An  insupportable  creature,  that  Rosny!  With  his  sour 
face  and  his  eternal  talk  of  *  the  public  good ' !  He  would 
sacrifice  you  to  the  State,  and  make  you  die  of  dulness  for  the 

*  Her  favourite  colour,  as  grey  was  Henry's. 
t  Jowjial  de  VEstoille. 

X  It  was  more  to  injure  her  open  enemy,  Sancy,  than  to  oblige  Rosny  that 
she  had  used  her  power  with  the  King. 


48  GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES 

sake  of  future  glory."  Poor  Henry  had  sometimes,  truly,  found 
the  Sully-virtues  a  trial.  "  Scripture  doesn't  say  we're  to  have 
no  faults,"  he  had  written  once,  with  his  inimitable  spontaneity  ; 
"and  I've  done  my  best  to  control  myself.  You  know  with 
what  passion  I  have  loved  my  mistresses — yet  I've  often  sup- 
ported your  opinions  against  theirs."  It  was  true.  Henry  could 
be  the  master  when  he  chose  ;  the  lover  did  not  blind  the 
King.  Even  Gabrielle  was,  in  1598,  to  suffer  a  cruel  momentary 
defeat  at  the  hands  of  the  detested  Rosny. 

He  refused  to  pass  the  accounts  for  the  baptism  of  her  second 
son,  Alexandre,  which  had  been  performed  as  that  of  an  enfant 
de  France.  It  was  pointed  out  to  him  that  the  fees  were  those 
usual  at  such  a  ceremony.  He  rose  in  righteous  wrath.  "  A  llez^ 
allez  I  Je  n'y  ferai  rien :  sachez  quil  n'y  a  point  d' enfant  de 
France  !  "  And  with  that  he  went  off  to  the  King.  The  King 
upheld  him.  **  Tell  Madame  la  Duchesse,*  and  put  her  in  good 
humour  if  you  can.  If  you  can't,  then  I  will  speak  as  master, 
and  not  as  servant."  Sully  failed  signally  to  put  her  in  good 
humour,  and  returned  to  Henry.  They  then  drove  together  to 
Gabrielle's  abode.  When  the  King  saw  her,  "he  did  not 
embrace  her,  or  speak  a  tender  word,"  but  led  her  into  her  bed- 
room, followed  by  Sully,  and  began !  "  Vois^  Madame,  y ! 
Vrai  Dieu,  qu'est-ce  que  ceci?  ...  I  have  loved  you  because  I 
have  found  you  gentle  and  gracious,  sweet-tempered,  yielding — 
now  I  begin  to  doubt  the  reality  of  all  this,  and  to  fear  that  you 
will  be  like  other  women  as  soon  as  I  have  raised  you  to  the 
rank  you  desire." 

It  was  too  much !  She  burst  into  tears,  called  on  death. 
"  If  I  had  a  dagger  here,  I'd  plunge  it  in  my  heart.  You  would 
find  your  image  there.  ...  If  you  were  wounding  me  like  this 
for  the  sake  of  another  woman,  I  could  at  least  understand  it, 
but  to  sacrifice  me  to  an  insolent  valet !  "  She  threw  herself  on 
her  bed.  Henry  was  overwhelmed  for  a  moment — "  I  saw  his 
heart  stagger,"  says  Sully,  picturesquely — but  he  recovered  him- 
self, and  uttered  the  famous  phrase,  "  I  could  better  do  without 
ten  mistresses  like  you,  than  one  Minister  like  him ! "  He 
turned  to  go  after  that :  no  doubt  it  had  pierced  his  own  heart. 
*  She  had  by  this  time  been  created  Duchesse  de  Beaufort. 


GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES  49 

She  rushed  after  him,  threw  herself  at  his  feet,  pleaded,  said  her 
own  tender,  yielding  things.  ...  It  ended  in  a  reconciliation  all 
round  ;  but  though  she  won  in  the  end — for  he  almost  openly 
proclaimed  her  as  Queen  in  the  months  following — the  wound 
was  mortal.  It  was  the  first  unkind  thing  that  he  had  ever 
said  to  her — and  he  had  said  it  before  Sully.  It  happened  on 
December  13,  1598 — his  birthday!*  She  was  enceinte  at  the 
time. 

They  were  still  awaiting  the  final  steps  for  his  divorce  from 
Marguerite  de  Valois  in  1599.  He  had  determined  to  marry 
Gabrielle.  Her  wedding-garments  were  ready — they  were  of 
the  Royal  crimson  ;  Henry  had  given  her  the  nuptial  ring  with 
which,  at  his  coronation,  he  had  wedded  France  ;  she  was 
Queen  in  everything  except  the  name.  Truly  it  seemed  that 
Sully  was  defeated  now.  .  .  .  She  was  at  Fontainebleau  with 
the  King  in  April,  but  Easter  was  near,  and  it  was  thought  well 
for  them  to  separate  for  the  last  days  of  Holy  Week.  Henry 
begged  her  to  return  to  Paris.  She  wept  when  she  received  the 
order ;  she  was  very  superstitious,  and  her  astrologers  had  been 
prophesying  nothing  but  evil.  For  long  she  had  been  depressed  : 
" elle  Halt  fort  troublee  de  sa  grossesse^^  " she  used  to  cry  all 
night" — and  now  came  this  separation.  She  wanted  so  much 
to  be  with  him !  He  was  profoundly  himself  dejected :  they 
both  had  had  menacing  dreams — but  the  confessor  insisted  that 
she  must  go,  and  she  was  docile  as  ever.  The  King  went  half- 
way to  Paris  with  her.  It  was  only  for  a  few  days,  yet  their 
very  souls  were  weighed  down  with  fear.  Every  word  they 
uttered  seemed  to  have  a  fatal  meaning.  They  said  good-bye 
— then  rushed  into  one  another's  arms  again.  .  .  .  The  last 
words  he  spoke  were  to  recommend  her  to  the  special  care  of  his 
special  friend.  La  Varenne. 

She  reached  Paris  on  Tuesday,  April  6,  about  three  o'clock ; 
supped  at  Zamet's  (a  rich  and  artistic  Italian  financier,  who  was 
a  close  friend  of  Henry's),  and,  the  same  evening,  went  to  the 
Deanery  of  Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois,  where  her  aunt,  Madame 
de  Sourdis,  lived.  (That  lady  was  then  at  Chartres.)  On 
Wednesday,    she   went    to   hear    Tenebrce    at    Saint-Antoine. 

♦  And  Sully's  ! 
E 


50  GABRIELLE   D'ESTREES 

There  she  was  suddenly  taken  ill ;  she  left  immediately,  stopped 
at  Zamet's,  "  where  she  ate  a  lemon,"  and  then  went  back  to  the 
Deanery,  and  to  bed.  The  night  passed  better  than  she  had 
feared  ;  and  on  Thursday  she  was  able  to  hear  Mass  at  Saint- 
Germain-l'Auxerrois.  When  she  returned,  she  again  fell  ill,  and 
at  four  o'clock,  the  most  appalling  pains  and  convulsions  seized 
her.  She  was  treated  with  the  pitiless  methods  of  the  time  ;  on 
Friday  an  operation  was  performed,  and  her  infant  was  found  to 
be  dead.  She  was  then  bled  three  times.  The  convulsions 
returned.  She  died  in  agonies  unspeakable,  unthinkable,  on 
Saturday,  April  lo,  1599,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning — twenty- 
eight  years  old. 

"Innocent  or  not — une  mort  inaudite" :  that  is  what  one 
chronicler  calls  it.  Poison  was,  of  course,  suspected  ;  and  only 
of  late  years  has  it  been  sought  to  prove,  by  means  of  a  hitherto 
unpublished  letter,*  written  six  days  after  the  event,  that  her 
death  was  natural.  Zamet  was  suspected  ;  Ferdinand  de'  Medici 
(uncle  of  the  Princess  whom  Henry  eventually  married)  was 
suspected  ;  Sully  was  suspected.  There  is  no  safe  evidence  on 
either  side.  But,  however  it  may  be,  if  the  death  were  natural, 
Nature  sometimes  has  the  air  of  committing  a  crime ;  and  she 
has  that  air  when  we  think  of,  when  we  are  forced  to  read,  the 
frightful  story — mitigated  here — of  the  last  hours  of  Gabrielle 
d'Estrees.  Let  it  be  said  in  a  word.  She  was  so  tortured  that 
Henry  was  not  allowed  to  see  her  before  or  after  death.  He 
was  told  by  his  friend.  La  Varenne,  that  she  was  dead,  some 
hours  before  she  actually  breathed  her  last.  Only  those  who 
have  no  sympathetic  imagination  for  others  can  blame  the 
officious  friend. 

"  The  King  fell,  as  if  struck  by  a  thunderbolt,  when  he  heard 
the  news."  As  soon  as  he  recovered,  he  said  vehemently  that 
at  any  rate  he  must  see  her,  and  hold  her  in  his  arms  once  more. 
But  they  did  not  let  him  go — he  must  not  see  her,  alive  or  dead. 
He  wore  black  for  eight  days,  and  violet  for  "three  whole 
months."  He  wrote  to  his  sister,  Madame  de  Bar,  who  had 
been  Gabrielle's  friend,  "  The  root  of  my  love  is  dead ;  there 
will  be  no  spring  for  me  any  more."  ... 

*  Jules  Loiseleur.     Questions  historiqties  du  XVII"  siecle.     1873. 


GABRIELLE   D^ESTREES  51 

On  October  6  of  the  same  year,  he  was  writing  his  first 
love-letter  to  Gabrielle's  successor,  Henriette  d'Entragues,  with 
whom  he  had  already  had  some  "  passages." 

It  is  all  of  a  piece.  He  had  truly  loved  her,  longed  to  marry 
her  ;  but  he  coiUd  not  remember,  he  tossed  the  past  aside  always 
— he  must  go  on,  go  on.  .  .  . 

She  had  loved  him  as  he  was. 


MARIE  MANCINI 

1639-1715 

FASCINATING,  generous-hearted,  restless  creature,  im- 
mortalized— how  characteristically — by  a  good-bye  ! 
For  she  was  always  leaving  somewhere  and  somebody 
for  otherwhere — and  better  luck  with  the  next  somebody.  La 
plus  folle  et  touiefois  la  meilleure  de  ces  Mazarines :  that  was  the 
verdict  of  Saint-Simon  on  this  woman  who  never  found  a  kindly 
hand  to  guide  her,  and  who  needed  guidance  more  than  most. 
She  was  governed  in  early  youth  by  the  uncle  she  detested ; 
but  it  was  guidance,  not  government,  that  she  required.  She 
was  loved  all  through  her  life,  but  never  by  a  man  who  could 
influence  her.  Here  was  the  type  of  woman  who  dominates, 
and  would  be  happier  if  she  could  find  her  victor.  Her  heart 
was  too  generous  for  any  kind  of  calculation,  yet  in  the  love- 
affairs  of  her  troubled  existence,  Marie  Mancini  exercised  over 
the  men  who  adored  her  that  magic  spell  which  left  herself  too 
free. 


She  was  the  third  of  five  daughters — of  five  nieces  more 
aptly,  since  it  was  as  les  nihes  de  Mazarin  that  these  Italian  girls 
were  known  in  half  the  capitals  of  Europe.  Her  father  was 
Michaele-Lorenzo  Mancini,  Roman  Baron  ;  her  mother  it  was 
who  made  her  a  "  Mazarine."  She  was  Hieronyme  Mazarini, 
younger  sister  of  that  enigmatic  prelate  who  surely  made  such 
use  of  nieces  as  never  had  been  made  before.  He  was  an  uncle 
to  be  proud  of — and  to  detest.  All  the  girls  heartily  detested 
him.  But  if  he  used  his  lovely  kinswomen  as  the  merest  pawns 
in    his    game,  he  at    any  rate   changed    most    of   them    into 


MARIE   MANCINl  53 

something  very  like  queens.  "  France,"  as  Gui-Patin  remarked, 
**  fed  these  little  Italian  fishes  "  ;  and  it  was  Mazarin  who  brought 
them  to  France. 

France  had  fed  him,  too,  for  that  matter !  At  the  time  of 
Marie's  arrival  there  (1653)  he  was  practically  ruler  of  the 
country.  His  power  over  the  Regent,  Anne  of  Austria,  was 
supreme.  ^^  II  ^tait  fort  sMuisantr  He  had  been  a  soldier,  and 
soldiering  had  taught  him  ease  and  audacity ;  a  diplomat,  and 
diplomacy  had  trained  him  in  grace  and  elegance.  Women 
adored  him ;  it  seemed  his  destiny  to  succeed  with  them,  for 
"he  never  sought  such  triumphs,"  says  one  biographer.  We 
doubt  that ;  and  in  the  case  of  Anne,  we  deny  it. 

When  Mazarin  came  to  France,  Court-life  there  was  de- 
pressing to  a  degree.  Louis  XIII.  cared  for  none  of  these 
things  ;  the  Queen,  pushed  aside  by  her  husband  and  tormented 
by  Richelieu,  lived  more  like  a  nun  than  a  great  lady.  Mazarin 
studied  Anne — the  elderly  coquette,  the  lover  of  little  attentions, 
compliments,  love-laden  glances.  ^^Elle  ainiait  la  belle galanterie : " 
no  one  knew  how  to  use  it  better  than  he  did.  Like  a  clever 
bezique-player,  every  point  he  had,  he  scored.  Anne  loved  to 
hear  her  mother-tongue :  this  newcomer  spoke  Spanish.  She 
was  particularly  vain  of  her  beautiful  white  hands  :  Mazarin 
procured  her  scented  gloves  from  Spain.  She  loved  oranges  ;  he 
got  them  for  her  in  and  out  of  season.  She  was  very  devout :  he 
was  a  Prince  of  the  Church.  Even  his  looks !  All  the  world  has 
heard  the  malicious  famous  speech  of  Richelieu  when  Mazarin 
first  appeared  at  Court :  "  Madame^  il  vous  plaira — il  ressemble  a 
Buckingham y  ...  It  is  not  the  first  time  that  a  woman  has  looked 
favourably  on  the  man  who  "  reminded  "  her  of  another,  and  for- 
gotten the  remembrance  in  the  reality.  Moreover,  Anne  was 
lazy,  and  Mazarin  took  all  the  trouble  of  the  Regency  off  her 
shoulders.  Fans  and  perfumes,  scented  gloves  and  oranges,  soft 
Spanish  tongue — and  no  bother  !  Anne  was  lost.  Idle  to  tell 
the  oft-told  tale  of  the  riddle-letters,  to  discuss  the  problem  of 
Mazarin's  ecclesiastical  position,  of  the  secret  marriage — 
enough  that  the  Cardinal,  in  1653,  was  supreme,  and  that 
Anne  adored  him. 

Marie  Mancini  was  then  fourteen,  and  was  living  in  Rome 


54  MARIE   MANCLNI 

with  her  mother.  Her  girlhood  was  unhappy.  Madame  Mancini 
had  for  her  a  very  strong  aversion.  Mothers  have  disliked  their 
daughters  in  many  ages,  but  it  has  usually  been  because  they 
have  loved  their  sons  too  well.  Not  so  in  this  case.  Madame  loved 
her  other  girls — Laure,  who  was  lovable,  and  Olympe,  who  was 
not ;  Hortense,  who  was  beautiful,  and  little  Marianne,  who  was 
clever ;  Marie  alone  she  not  only  did  not  love — she  actively 
tormented. 

When  Mazarin  summoned  Madame  Mancini  to  France,  he 
instructed  her  to  bring  her  eldest  remaining  daughter  with  her. 
This  was  Marie.  But  when  the  call  arrived,  Madame  instantly 
thought  of  Hortense, "  whose  beauty,"  says  Marie,  in  her  touching 
book,  La  V^riti  dans  son  your^  "had  given  her  the  elder's 
privilege  in  my  mother's  affection."  The  orders,  however,  were 
explicit.  Could  Marie  then  be  induced  to  remain  behind  in  a 
cloister  ? .  .  .  She  was  called  upon  to  decide  at  once — we  may 
imagine  with  how  plain  an  indication  of  which  would  become  her 
best.  One  can  see  the  little  figure — a  sallow,  undeveloped 
schoolgirl,  fourteen,  the  awkward  age ! — standing  before  that 
unloving  mother,  to  choose  between  life  and  death.  Courage  was 
not  wanting.  The  child  thought  a  moment ;  then  she  said  that 
"there  were  convents  everywhere,  and  that  when  it  pleased  Heaven 
to  give  her  pious  aspirations,  she  could  follow  them  as  easily  in 
Paris  as  in  Rome."  Brilliant !  Madame  Mancini  was  beaten, 
but  she  had  her  alternative  ready  :  Hortense  should  go  too. 

So  they  started.  They  travelled  like  queens,  and  descended 
at  Aix,  where  the  Due  de  Mercceur  (Laure  Mancini's  husband) 
was  Governor.  There  they  stayed  eight  months.  No  sooner  had 
they  settled  down  than  the  mother  attempted  to  prejudice 
Mazarin  against  Marie.  He  had  found  pretty  nieces  useful — but 
what  was  he  going  to  do  with  this  laideron  ?  Madame  de 
Motteville  shall  draw  her  poor  portrait.  "  She  was  tall,  but  so 
thin  that  her  neck  and  arms  looked  positively  wasted  ;  and  she 
was  dark  and  sallow.  Her  eyes  were  big  and  black,  but  had  as 
yet  so  little  expression  that  they  looked  stupid  ;  her  mouth  was 
large  and  thin-lipped,  and  except  for  her  beautiful  teeth,  she  was 
downright  ugly."  She  was  shy  and  awkward  too,  and  only  half- 
educated,  for  no  one  had  taken  any  interest  in  her  little  lessons. 


MARIE  MANCINI  55 

"  Hortense  had  much  the  same  defects,"  says  Marie  in  her  book, 
"  but  her  youth  and  beauty  were  excuse  enough  for  her." 

"  Put  her  in  a  convent !  "  It  was  the  mother's  fixed  idea, 
"  And  may  she  never  come  out !  "  she  might  have  added,  for  that 
was  what  she  wanted — but  though  Mazarin  did  send  Marie  to  a 
nunnery,  he  gave  her  hopes  of  coming  out  again  by  telling  her 
that  "  she  must  try  to  put  on  a  little  flesh  while  she  was  there." 
So  she  went  to  her  convent  on  April  i,  1654,  fifteen  years  old. 
The  Abbess  quickly  perceived  that,  in  this  girl,  Mazarin  had 
another  niece  to  be  reckoned  with.  Marie  learned  with  dazzling 
rapidity ;  the  most  difficult  subjects  left  undismayed  her  pre- 
hensile mind  ;  and  in  addition  to  those  solid  gifts,  she  had  the 
supreme  one,  the  coal  from  the  high  altar,  /e/eu  sacre  !  Wit  and 
intellect  were  to  be  her  province,  but  she  was  to  have,  as  well,  the 
art  to  please.  Courage  we  have  already  seen  her  display ;  pride 
she  never  failed  in,  nor  generosity — "  she  was  a  madcap,  yet  the 
best  of  those  Mazarin  women."  .  .  .  She  stayed  in  her  convent 
eighteen  months,  and  then  Mazarin  summoned  her  to  the  Court, 
which  was  at  La  Fere.  The  indefatigable  uncle  had  already  a 
parti  in  his  eye — Armand  de  la  Porte,  son  of  the  Marquis  de  la 
Meilleraye,  Grand  Master  of  the  Artillery.  Marie  arrived,  quite 
guileless ;  and  it  was  then  that  it  first  occurred  to  her  uncle  that 
the  young  man  might  have  something  to  say  in  the  business. 
He  had,  and  he  said  it. 

*'I  will  marry  no  one  but  Hortense  Mancini.  I  am  hers 
till  death.  If  I  could  marry  her,  I  would  be  content  to  die 
three  months  after!"  These  heroics  were  heard  by  Mazarin 
with  angry  contempt.  He  showed  a  delicate  consideration 
for  Marie's  feelings  by  exclaiming  that  he  would  as  soon  allow 
Hortense  to  marfy  a  lackey.  .  .  .  But  Irony  had  marked  the 
incident  for  her  own.  Not  only  did  Mazarin  allow  that  very 
niece  to  marry  that  very  man,  but  he,  who  "  if  he  could  marry 
her  would  be  content  to  die  three  months  after,"  might  well 
have  been  content  if  the  gods  had  taken  him  at  his  word. 

Marie,  probably  glad  to  escape  the  Grand  Master  at  any 
cost,  fretted  not  at  all  over  her  sister's  triumph.  But  a  bad 
time  was  coming.  She  was  sent  back  to  her  mother  at  the 
Louvre.     Madame    Mancini    was    unchanged.     All    her    five 


56  MARIE   MANCINI 

daughters  were  with  her  now.  Madame  de  Mercoeur  (Laure) 
had  apartments  in  the  same  palace  ;  Hortense  lived  with  her  ; 
Olympe  had  her  own  rooms  ;  and  six-year-old  Marianne,  who 
had  by  this  time  been  brought  to  the  Land  of  Cockayne, 
was  a  precocious,  amusing  child,  the  delight  of  every  one. 
Poor  luckless,  loveless  Marie  had  to  look  on  at  all  the  petting. 
Her  mother  was  towards  her  "so  ill-tempered  that  it  was 
unbearable."  What  a  time  it  must  have  been !  .  .  .  Fifteen 
we  are  now,  and  conscious  of  our  intellect ;  conscious,  too,  it 
may  be,  of  what  it  might  mean,  one  day,  to  be  a  charming 
woman.  Beauty  we  do  not  hope  for ;  at  sixteen,  mirrors  speak 
but  oracularly,  and  there  are  truth-tellers  around  us  who  speak 
not  oracularly  at  all.  But  somewhere  in  our  **  subliminal 
consciousness,"  the  dream  of  power  seems  not  all  a  dream.  We 
can  see  ourselves,  feel  ourselves,  playing  a  big  part — we  could 
not  dream  so  well  if  it  were  not  to  be.  .  .  .  The  sisters  may 
go  to  Court.  We  may  not.  We  must  spend  the  time  in  our 
dismal  room  ("  I  had  for  my  only  retreat,  the  worst  of  lodgings  "), 
and  so  we  dream,  and  we  read — and  we  find  such  books  ! 
Uncle  Mazarin  does  know  about  books !  We  find  Ariosto, 
and  in  declaiming  him  to  ourselves,  we  find  that  we  have  a 
most  beautiful  voice — an  amorous,  romantic  voice.  A  mind 
and  a  voice!  These  are  things  worth  having.  Our  room  is 
hideous,  our  mother  is  hateful,  our  sisters  are  too  enviable — 
but  we  have  a  mind  and  a  voice.  Alas,  though !  the  bad  hour 
comes — the  hour  when  we  think,  "What  is  the  good  when 
no  one  knows,  when  no  one  hears }"  .  .  . 

The  time  of  emancipation  was  at  hand,  nevertheless.  At 
the  end  of  1656,  Madame  Mancini  fell  ill.  What  were  Marie's 
feelings?  They  can  hardly  have  been  the  normal  daughter's, 
and  their  complexity  was  increased  by  a  most  disturbing 
element  which  entered  her  life  with  Madame's  illness.  This 
was  the  King  himself,  who  visited  the  invalid  every  evening, 
and  who,  to  reach  the  sick-room,  was  obliged  to  pass  through 
one  which  adjoined  Marie's.  Soon  he  began  to  look  for  the 
vivacious  figure,  to  feel  disappointed  when  he  did  not  see  it, 
to  kindle  when  he  did — and  he  very  often  did.  They  talked 
together ;  longer  and   longer  grew  the  stolen   interviews.  .  .  . 


MARIE   MANCINI  57 

And  Marie?  Louis  was  surpassingly  handsome,  charming, 
beautifully  dressed ;  he  brought  into  her  solitary  life  the 
sorcery  of  the  great  world  ;  she  was  neglected,  despised — he, 
the  highest  in  the  land,  found  her  delightful  ...  we  may 
conjecture  that  she  did  not  think,  asked  no  questions,  but 
took  the  goods  the  gods  gave  her,  and  walked  blindly  into 
her  Fool's  Paradise. 

Madame   Mancini   died  on   December  19,  1656.     Immedi- 
ately afterwards  Mazarin  summoned  Marie  to  Court.     As  she 
sagely  says  in  the  little  brown   book,  "  Contentment  of  mind 
always    contributes    to    the   favourable    development    of    the 
body.  ...  I  was  not  recognizable  ! "     She  was  to  wait  for  forty 
to  be  actually  beautiful,  but  at  eighteen  she  was  at  any  rate 
dangerously  attractive.     Her  features  were   irregular,  but  her 
figure  was  exquisite  ;   her  eyes  were  large,  black,  and  brilliant, 
her  teeth  lovely,  and  she  showed  them  in  a  fascinating  smile. 
Her  face  was  one  of  those  which  speak ;  her  voice  was,  as  we 
know,   enchanting.     She  was  a  daring  talker,  unconventional, 
natural,  intense  .  .  ,  Altogether,  amid  the  Court  beauties,  like 
some   rare  foreign  bird,  and   Louis  quickly  found   the  home- 
species  insipid.     Other  women  had  suited  themselves  to  him ; 
this  girl  made  him  suit  himself  to  her.     She  was  much  cleverer 
than   the   King,   who   danced   and   dressed   divinely,   but   was 
totally  unintellectual ;  she  taught  him  Italian,  reading  Ariosto 
in  the  romantic  voice;  she  talked  with  his  Ministers  and  his 
brilliant  men — politics  with   Lyonne  or  Servieu,  morality  with 
La    Rochefoucauld,   history   with    Saint-Evremond,   war  with 
Turenne  ;  and  talked  audaciously,  wittily,  created  an  atmosphere, 
stimulated,  exhilarated.  .  .  .  Louis  yielded  wholly  to  her  spell. 
Her   power  grew  and   grew ;  success   was   indeed   succeeding. 
And  then,  just  when  intellect  alone  might  have  wearied,  her 
heart  was  to  have  its  part  to  play.     The  King  fell  dangerously 
ill.       For   a   fortnight    he   lay  in   dire   peril,   and    Marie  was 
beside  herself  with  grief.      That  was,  it  is  true,  the  obligatory 
Court  attitude ;  but  Court  anxiety  and   Marie's  were  of  very 
different    textures.     Louis,    recovering,    heard    of    the    daily 
inquiries,    the    tears,   the    wild    and     agonized    anxiety — and 
realized  that  a  dream  was  fulfilled.     He  was  loved  for  himself! 


58  MARIE  MANCINI 

Now  all  hesitation  was  over.  Once  recovered,  he  never 
left  her  side.  She  was  romantically,  incredibly  happy.  "Oh, 
Hortense,  you  must  be  in  love  with  some  one  too ! " — and  the 
little  lovely  sister  tried,  but  at  twelve,  found  simpler  joys 
more  entertaining.  Everything  went  on  wheels.  Even  Uncle 
Mazarin  was  indulgent ;  the  Queen  was  kind ;  the  King  grew 
more  and  more  irresistible — for  (says  Mademoiselle  de  Mont- 
pensier)  "ever  since  he  has  been  in  love  with  Mademoiselle 
Mancini,  he  has  been  in  a  good  temper  !  " 

But  Uncle  Mazarin  was  watching.  The  little  game  might 
serve  a  purpose.  It  should  go  on,  until  the  moment  came 
to  stop  it,  and  then  the  girl  should  pay  for  her  audacity  in 
defying  him.  For  Marie  did  defy  him.  The  memory  of  that 
humiliated  girlhood  was  still  alive.  For  two  years  after  the 
mother's  death,  "  I  still  felt  over  me  the  terror  with  which  she 
had  inspired  me" — and  the  uncle  lived,  to  be  revenged  upon. 
Assuredly  she  was  no  intriguer — a  blunderer,  rather.  In  this 
crisis,  she  set  the  two  people  who  had  most  power  over  her 
destiny — Anne  and  Mazarin — passionately  against  her.  Anne 
called  her  that  girl — pregnant  feminine  phrase !  Mazarin  found 
her  undermining  his  influence  with  Louis,  spurring  him  on 
to  emancipate  himself,  to  take  a  real  part  in  affairs.  .  .  .  But 
for  the  moment  it  suited  the  Cardinal's  book  to  let  the  game 
go  on. 


Hints  of  a  Royal  Marriage  are  in  the  air,  a  marriage  with 
Princess  Margaret  of  Savoy — like  Louis  himself,  a  grandchild 
of  Henri  IV.  The  Princess  will  come  to  Lyons  to  meet  the 
King,  and  then  if  he  likes  her 

The  lovers  are  horrified.  Is  it  serious  ?  It  is  apparently 
serious.  They  consult  together.  If  Anne  goes  to  Lyons,  Marie 
will  have  to  go  too — so  Anne  is  implored  to  come,  and  she 
consents.     Uncle  Mazarin  consents  too.     Wonderful ! 

On  the  way,  the  King  is  with  us  all  the  time.  Romance 
IS  in  the  air.  Carriages,  chariots,  lackeys,  soldiers,  groups  of 
magnificent  courtiers — a  pageant  like  a  fairy-tale.  Crowds  of 
gallants  and   fair  ladies  at  the  gates  of  every  town  to  see  the 


MARIE   MANCINI  59 

Ang — so  beautiful,  distinguished,  graceful.  .  .  .  It  is  all  coming 
rue.  They  ride  together:  the  weather  is  cold — no  matter! 
*hat  keen  wind  whips  a  deeper  carmine  into  the  young  happy 
Faces.  Lyons  is  reached  on  November  28th ;  the  Savoy  party 
arrive  on  December  2nd.  The  King  rides  out  to  meet  them. 
Marie  remains  behind.  He  meets  them — comes  back  in  great 
glee  to  his  mother's  carriage.  "  She  is  smaller  than  Made- 
r  moiselle  de  Villeroy.  She  has  a  supple  waist.  Her  complexion  " 
— he  hesitates  .  .  .  "Well,  it's  olive,  but  it  suits  her.  She  has 
fine  eyes.  I  like  her."  He  talks,  indeed,  gaily  and  familiarly 
to  her — he  who  was  wont  to  be  silent  with  strangers!  It  is 
Marie  who  has  taught  him  how  to  talk.  .  .  .  He  rides  along 
beside  Princess  Margaret's  carriage. 

And  Marie  is  waiting,  waiting.  At  last  they  arrive.  Made- 
moiselle de  Montpensier  has  the  story  ready :  not  a  detail  is 
spared  us.  We  listen ;  we  say  nothing.  But  we  have  a  long 
talk  with  Louis  that  evening.  .  .  .  "Aren't  you  ashamed  that 
they  should  want  to  marry  you  to  such  an  ugly  bride  ?  "  .  .  . 
From  that  time,  the  King  "  entirely  ignores  the  Princess."  The 
marriage  is  rate.  The  Duke  of  Savoy,  Margaret's  brother, 
arrives  at  Lyons,  expecting  to  find  it  settled ;  at  the  same 
moment,  arrives  an  envoy  from  Spain,  offering  the  Infanta's 
hand. 

That  was  what  Mazarin  had  wanted  all  along.  The  Savoy 
marriage  was  a  trick  to  force  Spain's  hand.  This  was  why  he 
had  permitted  Anne  to  come,  why  Marie's  presence  had  been 
encouraged :  she  made  a  convenient  scape-goat ! .  The  Spanish 
marriage  was  the  very  kernel  of  his  policy.  The  Savoys  might 
now  take  themselves  off — and  the  sooner  the  better.  The  Duke 
departed  in  a  towering  rage.  Madame  Royale  lamented  in 
private ;  in  public,  she  was  cool.  The  Princess  "  showed  no 
emotion  whatever,  except  disdain." 

The  Savoy  Court  was  gone,  but  the  French  Court  lingered 
at  Lyons.  "The  King  went  to  see  the  Cardinal,  and  spent 
all  the  rest  of  the  day  with  Mademoiselle  Mancini.  When  the 
Queen  dismissed  us  after  supper,  the  King  took  Mademoiselle 
Mancini  home.  .  .  .  Whenever  there  was  a  fine  moonlit  evening, 
he  went  to  Bellecour.     Mademoiselle  Mancini  was  ill  for  two  or 


60  MARIE   MANCINI 

three  days,  and  he  went  often  to  see  her."     Thus  La  Grande 
Mademoiselle,  who  had  wished  herself  to  marry  "  the  King." 

The  Court  returned  to  Paris  in  January,  1659.  The  King 
rode,  and  Marie  rode  beside  him,  ravishing  in  velvet  doublet 
and  black  velvet  cap  with  many  feathers — the  Court  riding- dress. 
How  the  bright  eyes  must  have  gleamed  and  glowed  beneath 
the  little  plumed  cap,  as  the  exquisite  figure  yielded  to  the 
motion  of  her  spirited  animal,  chosen  by  the  King  himself ! 

"  What  if  Heaven  just  prove  that  he  and  I 
Ride,  ride  together,  for  ever  ride  ? " 


Paris,  once  reached,  was  gayer  than  ever.  Dances,  fetes- 
champetres^  succeeded  one  another,  and  love  was  lord  of  all. 
Every  fete  was  in  honour  of  some  fair — and  the  King  was  her 
gallant!  She  tells  a  charming  anecdote  of  Louis  as  a  lover. 
It  was  during  a  fete  at  Bois-le-Vicomte.  Marie  and  the  King 
were  strolling  in  the  woods,  when,  in  some  movement  of  hers,  she 
knocked  her  hand  against  the  pommel  of  the  Royal  sword,  and 
bruised  herself  slightly.  Louis  took  the  sword  from  his  belt, 
and  flung  it  far  into  the  thicket.  ..."  I  cannot  describe  the 
way  he  did  it.     There  are  no  words  for  it." 

A  lover  with  such  felicities  at  command  turns  life  into  a 
lyric.  Bruises  are  covetable  ;  Royal  swords  no  doubt  recovered 
tactfully  by  discreet  lackeys — and  so  the  weeks  go  by.  But 
Mazarin'  and  Anne  are  resolved  to  end  this  lyric ;  it  is  growing 
too  ardent.  .  .  .  Pimentel,  the  Spanish  envoy,  is  in  Paris,  and 
appears  at  a  grand  fete  at  Berny.  He  is  confounded  at  the 
violence  of  the  flirtation — "the  King  never  left  Mademoiselle 
Mancini's  side" — and  speaks  to  the  Cardinal  about  it.  At  the 
same  time,  the  King  writes  to  ask  the  Uncle's  permission  to 
make  Mademoiselle  Mancini  his  wife.  He  is  sternly  refused. 
The  overtures  for  the  Spanish  marriage  are  renewed;  Anne 
is  at  Mazarin's  feet,  for  this  is  the  desire  of  her  heart.  .  .  . 
Decisive  measures  must  now  be  taken  with  regard  to  Marie. 
She  is  ordered  to  leave  France  with  her  gouvernante  and  her 
two  sisters,  Hortense  and  Marianne.     She  is  to  go  to  La  Rochelle. 

What  shall  she  do  now .?    Why !  she  will  appeal  to  Louis : 


MARIE   MANCINI  61 

le  will  never  let  her  go !  Even  Anne  is  scared :  this  is  a  drastic 
measure.  The  detested  uncle  ordains  that  the  girl  herself  shall 
tell  the  King.  She  does  not  mind  that :  it  will  play  her  game 
for  her.  There  is  a  terrible  scene.  Louis  swears  that  nothing 
shall  make  him  marry  the  Infanta.  "  You  alone  shall  sit  upon 
the  throne  of  France.  And  then,  think  of  all  the  obstacles  that 
invariably  arise  in  connection  with  these  alliances ! "  .  .  .  (Her 
comment  on  this,  in  the  small  brown  book,  is  very  poignant. 
"  Mais  totites  les  difficultes  furent  surmontees^  et  il  n'y  eut  que 
mon  malheiir  cT invincibkr)  What  can  Louis  do  to  show  how 
much  he  means  it  ?  He  can  buy  for  her  the  Royal  pearls  of 
England !  She  has  seen  and  admired  them  ;  now  they  are 
for  sale,  and  she  shall  have  them.  "No,  no!"  says  the  girl, 
with  a  little  theatrical  touch  of  sadness.  "  Henceforth  I  shall 
have  nowhere  to  wear  them."  He  pleads,  and  at  last  she 
accepts.  He  writes  at  once,  ordering  them  to  be  bought  for 
him,  and  gets  the  money  from  Mazarin,  who  cannot  refuse  his 
King !  Events  hurry  now.  Louis  has  an  interview  with  his 
mother,  and  comes  away  from  it  "  with  red  eyes  "...  Marie  is 
to  go.  But  he  has  extracted  a  promise  to  be  allowed  to  see 
her  later  on  at  Bayonne,  and  in  the  meantime,  to  correspond 
with  her.  She  listens.  Her  heart  sinks.  The  impossible  has 
happened :  he  has  let  her  go !  .  .  .  She  goes,  the  next  day. 
"  The  King  bursts  into  tears  as  he  hands  her  into  her  carriage." 
She  looks  at  him.  The  black  eyes  are  tender,  but  they  flash  a 
little ;  the  wonderful  voice  quivers,  but  has  it  not  a  touch  of 
scorn  somewhere  .  .  . 

"  Sire^  vous  ites  roi  ;  vous  pleurez  ;  etjeparsi" 
All  the  magic  of  the  tender,  brilliant  creature  speaks  in  that 
immortal  good-bye.     He  loves  her — yet  he  has  failed  her. 

But  it  was  not  yet  the  end.  She  started  on  her  journey,  and 
fell  ill  at  Notre-Dame  de  Clery.  The  King  did  not  know ;  he 
wrote  every  day,  and  wondered  to  get  no  answers.  At  last  a 
confidant  heard,  and  hastened  to  inform  him.  He  sent  a 
musketeer  post-haste  to  inquire.  Just  then,  Anne  arrived  at 
Chantilly,  and  was  freezingly  received.  She  asked  for  news  of 
Marie.  "  It  is  idle  to  ask  for  news  of  people  whom  one  is  trying 
to  kill,"  thundered  the  King.  ...  He  sent  Marie  his  portrait ; 


62  MARIE   MANCINI 

musketeers  arrived  with  letters  wherever  the  girl  stopped — and 
all  the  letters  were  answered.  Mazarin  suggested  a  less  remark- 
able method  of  communication  ;  the  King  took  not  the  least 
notice.  The  Cardinal  was  nearly  off  his  head  with  worry,  and  the 
more,  because  sentimental  Anne  was  beginning  to  side  with  her 
son.  He  was  so  unhappy  !  She  adored  him  ;  she  loved  a  lover  ; 
she  was  not  over-scrupulous.  Why  shouldn't  he  marry,  and  love 
Mademoiselle  Mancini  all  the  same  ? 

The  Court  moved  to  Bayonne.  Louis  had  been  promised  that 
he  should  see  Marie  on  the  way.  Mazarin  tried  to  break  the 
compact,  but  Anne  insisted  that  they  should  meet.  They  met. 
Much  was  said,  vowed,  wept — and  all  it  came  to  was  a  counsel  of 
despair.  Louis  swore  that  he  would  be  faithful,  "  even  if  he  had 
to  marry  the  Infanta."  This  was  a  lower  note  than  "  You  alone 
shall  sit  upon  the  throne  of  France."  With  what  a  sure  prevision 
she  must  have  heard  it!  And  in  truth  it  was  the  end.  The 
King  was  on  his  way  to  make  the  final  arrangements  for  his 
marriage. 

As  soon  as  Marie  was  convinced  of  this,  she  wrote  and  told 
him  that  all  was  over,  that  she  would  not  answer  his  letters,  and 
did  not  wish  to  receive  them.  She  sent  to  Mazarin  a  proud,  cold 
note,  telling  him  what  she  had  done.  He  answered  with  paeans 
of  praise.  .  .  .  We  can  guess  with  what  a  look  upon  the  speaking 
face  that  letter  was  read ! 

On  June  the  2nd,  1660,  Louis  XIV.  and  Marie-Therese, 
Infanta  of  Spain,  were  married  by  proxy.  Shortly  afterwards, 
they  met  for  the  first  time.  .  .  .  Marie  Mancini  heard  the 
Court-gossip.  The  King  is  very  vmch  in  love  with  the  young 
Princess. 

"Say  horrid  things  about  him,  Hortense — point  out  all  his 
faults  to  me ! " 

More  poignant  words  were  never  uttered.  The  heart  still 
aches  to  read  them.  .  .  . 

The  King  is  in  love  with  the  young  Queen  ;  and  here  is 
Prince  Charles  of  Lorraine,  a  suitor  for  our  hand.  He  is  very 
handsome,  and  he  is  head  over  ears  in  love  with  us.  How  do  we 
look  now  "i  "  Very  red  lips,  very  white  teeth,  very  black  hair,  a 
dark  skin,  a  large  nose ;  mouth  and  eyes  lifted  at  the  corners, 


MARIE  MANCINI  63 

quaintly,  almost  comically."  But  it  was  not  her  looks  ;  it  was  a 
"  voluptuous  fascination  which  gave  men  up  to  her  as  her  slaves." 
She  and  Prince  Charles  used  to  meet  in  secret — she,  with  her 
proud,  bitter,  doubting  heart.  .  .  .  Yes — she  would  have  married 
him.  But  Mazarin  said  No.  He  wanted  to  get  her  out  of 
France.  She  came  back  to  Court  first,  though;  she  had  to 
see  it  all. 

On  the  way  back  from  his  marriage,  Louis  had  left  his  Queen 
at  Saintes,  to  go  upon  a  pilgrimage  to  "  the  sacred  places  of  his 
love."  He  had  the  instinct  for  romance,  the  dramatic  instinct 
which  had  made  him  so  felicitous  a  lover.  She  should  see  that 
his  heart  was  still  aflame  !  Naturally  he  felt  strongly  when,  after 
such  an  exquisite  display,  he  heard  that  she  had  a  new  lover 
already.  He  had  a  new  wife,  it  was  true — but  that  was  different. 
He  never  really  forgave  her.  He  received  her  coldly  ;  he  praised 
the  Queen  to  her  ;  she  flew  out  in  her  impetuous  way — he  snubbed 
her.  "She  withdrew  hastily."  ...  It  was  a  grievous  time,  for 
Charles  had  already  consoled  himself;  the  poor  child  had  two 
faithless  ones  to  despise.  But  a  new  suitor  arrived :  the  Prince 
Colonna,  Grand  Constable  of  Naples.  That  marriage  was 
arranged,  but  Mazarin  died  before  it  came  off".  On  March  9th, 
1 66 1,  the  waiting  family  heard  the  news.  "  Pure  e  crepato  !  "  ("  At 
last  we  have  got  rid  of  him  ! ")  they  cried  in  chorus — and  of  the 
many  unlovable  things  they  did,  this  ranks  easily  among  the 
first. 

Marie  and  Prince  Colonna — handsome,  gallant,  devoted — were 
married  nearly  a  year  later  than  Louis  and  Marie-Ther^se.  At 
the  wedding,  Marie  showed  no  emotion.  "  She  said  firmly  the 
'  Yes '  which  was  to  bind  her  to  a  stranger  .  .  .  then  her  eyes 
turned,  with  an  ineffable  expression,  towards  the  King,  who 
went  pale  as  he  met  them." 

She  never  saw  Louis  again. 

The  Prince  at  first  won  her  heart  by  his  devotion  ;  they  lived 
happily  enough  in  Rome  for  some  years.  She  had  three  sons  ; 
in  the  intervals,  lived  a  gay  life,  surrounded  by  her  own  French 
set.  After  the  third  confinement,  she  announced  that  she  would 
not  risk  her  life  again.  Colonna  acquiesced — with  the  usual 
consequences  ;  and  Marie  came  to  know  of  it.      In  1669,  things 


64  MARIE  MANCINI 

came  to  a  head.  She  had  Hortense  to  encourage  her — naughty, 
lovely  Hortense,  now  Duchesse  de  Mazarin.  She  had  married 
that  very  de  la  Meilleraye,  whom  Mazarin  had  disdained  ;  he  had 
inherited  Mazarin's  name,  as  well  as  his  enormous  fortune. 
Hortense  found  him  quite  impossible  :  here  she  was,  accordingly, 
in  Rome.  With  this  daring  example  before  her,  Marie  began  to 
think  of  running  away  from  her  husband.  For  three  years  she 
debated  ;  then,  on  May  29th,  1672,  she  took  the  step  which  proved 
irrevocable.  Hortense  and  she  embarked,  at  Civita  Vecchia, 
in  a  skiff  which  brought  them,  after  a  week,  to  the  coast  of 
Provence. 

Her  great  hope  was  that  Louis  would  authorise  her  return  to 
Paris.  She  wrote  long  letters  imploring  his  protection ;  and 
Louis,  who  "  made  a  rule  of  being  grateful  to  the  ladies  who  had 
loved  him,"  accorded  it,  but  was  quickly  influenced  against  her 
by  Madame  de  Montespan,  now  maitresse-en-titre.  He  took  back 
his  permission  to  come  to  Paris,  and  coldly  advised  her  to  enter 
a  convent.  She  was  provided  with  money,  but  forbidden  to  come 
to  Court. 

Thenceforward  began  that  distracted  existence — her  Odyssey ! 
— which  seems  to  have  so  little  relation  to  reality.  Convents  at 
Aix,  at  Fontainebleau,  at  Reims,  at  Lyons,  Turin,  Madrid, 
Segovia — convents,  and  escapes  from  convents  ;  a  short  reconcilia- 
tion with  Colonna  at  Madrid, — but  never  life  together  again  .  .  . 
It  was  not  till  near  the  end,  when  she  was  sixty-six  years  old,  that 
Marie  Mancini  Colonna  revisited  Paris.  Louis  was  sixty-seven. 
He  sent  a  graceful  message — but  each  knew  that  it  was  better 
not  to  meet.  She  had  "  lost  all  her  good  looks ;  she  thought  of 
nothing  but  her  health,  ate  little,  cooked  her  meals  in  her  own 
room,  walked  a  lot,  and  laughed  at  the  fashions."  He  "slept 
badly,  often  awoke  with  a  start,  had  bad  dreams,  and  needed 
continual  care  .  .  ." 

"  Oh,  les  reves  du  pass^^  aprh  cinquante  ans  !  " 


She  had  had  another  Royal  or  semi- Royal  lover,  Charles- 
Emmanuel,  Duke  of  Savoy,  the  very  Duke  who  had  come  to 
Lyons  at  the  time  of  the  marriage-fiasco !     He  was  a  dangerously 


»»     w  « 


■»    •  •     »»» 

••••••        • 


Berlin  Photographic  Ci 


MARIE   MANCINI,  PRINCESS   COLONNA 

FROM    THE    PICTURE    BY   MIGNARD,    IN   THE    KAISER   FRIEDRICH    MUSEUM,    BERLIN 


MARIE  MANCINI  65 

attractive  man,  and  he  lost  his  heart  completely  to  the 
irresistible  Marie.  She  gave  him  any  amount  of  trouble ;  he 
was  unfailingly  kind,  but  she  left  his  Court  in  a  fury,  because  he 
— a  martyr  to  conscience  !— would  keep  on  advising  her  to  return 
to  her  husband. 

Of  what  avail  to  follow  her  through  the  maze  of  her  wander- 
ings }  After  her  happy  years  at  the  Court  of  Savoy,  she 
went  to  Frankfort,  Cologne,  Antwerp,  Brussels — finally,  Madrid. 
There  another  lover  sprang  up — the  Almirante  of  Castile,  "  one 
of  the  greatest  gentlemen  of  Spain."  She  had  a  brilliant  career 
in  Madrid.  We  get  such  pictures  of  her  as  these : — "  She  had 
the  most  divine  figure — tm  corps  a  tespagnole ;  and  great  masses 
of  hair,  tied  on  top  with  a  flame-coloured  ribbon."  "  She  had 
a  little  excited  sort  of  manner,  which  wouldn't  suit  every  one,  but 
did  suit  her."  "  Her  skin  is  clear,  her  figure  is  charming  ;  she 
has  beautiful  eyes,  beautiful  teeth,  beautiful  hair."  .  .  .  Charles- 
Emmanuel  died  in  1675.  Her  epitaph  for  him  was,  "  I  have 
never  known  a  Prince  so  faithful  in  absence  as  he."  But 
the  Almirante  had  intervened  !  Then  came  Don  Juan  of 
Austria.  ...  In  1689,  Colonna  died.  He  made  a  good  end, 
exonerating  his  wife  from  all  blame,  and  leaving  her  his  engage- 
ment-ring. Marie  was  terribly  distressed  by  his  death ;  she 
forgot  all  but  the  first  happy  years — and  perhaps  it  was  a  little 
like  the  feeling  of  the  cage-bird  set  at  liberty !  She  had  had 
"  prison-bars  "  to  beat  against  nearly  all  her  life. 

She  stayed  at  Madrid  till  1691 — then  Alicante  saw  her,  then 
at  last  France.  Then  back  to  Rome,  for  a  little  while,  then  again 
Madrid — for  Spain  was  the  country  of  her  adoption.  She  was 
happy  there  ;  she  won  all  hearts,  she  liked  Spanish  ways  and 
fashions,  she  spoke  Spanish  perfectly — in  the  voice  "  which  every- 
one who  ever  heard  it,  speaks  of." 

There  let  us  leave  her. 

"  She  may  have  saved  Louis  XIV.  from  being  another  Louis 
XV.  She  was  the  first  to  awaken  in  him  feeling  and  thought ; 
she  made  him  understand  ideas.  Perhaps,  at  her  obscure  death, 
she  could  contemplate  proudly  the  reign  of  Louis  XIV.  She 
had  had  but  one  page  of  it,  but  that  page  was  her  whole  life." 

I.  She  kept  all  through  her  troubled  existence — wearing  them 
■ 


66  MARIE  MANCINI 

on  her  bosom,  underneath  her  dress — the  Royal  pearls  of  Eng- 
land, which  Louis  had  given  her  at  the  crisis  of  their  destinies. 

She  died  quite  suddenly  in  the  house  of  a  Spanish  monk  at 
Pisa,  in  1715,  and  was  buried  in  the  Church  of  St.  Sepulchre. 
She  made  her  own  epitaph — with  the  genius  for  expression  which 
had  been  hers  through  all  her  life. 

Very  short  it  is  and  very  simple,  like  her  other,  her  immortal 
good-bye : — 

"MARIE  MANCINI  COLONNA 
CENDRES  ET  POUSSIERE." 


LOLA  MONTEZ 

1818-1861 

ER   Majesty's  Theatre  was  crowded  on  the  night   of 
June   10,    1843.      A   new    Spanish   dancer  was   an- 
nounced :  "  Donna  Lola  Montez."     It  was  her  d^bM, 
d  Lumley,  the  manager,  had  been  puffing  her  beforehand, 
as  he  alone  knew  how.     To  Lord  Ranelagh,  the  leader  of  the 
dilettante  group  of  fashionable  young  men,  he  had  whispered 
mysteriously,   "I    have    a    surprise   in   store.      You   shall  see,^* 
So  Ranelagh  and  a  party  of  his   friends  filled  the  omnibus- 
boxes,  those  tribunes  at  the  side  of  the  stage  whence  Success 
or   Failure    was    pronounced.     Things    had    been   done   with 
Lumley's  consummate  art:  the  packed  house  was  murmurous 
with  excitement.     She  was  a  raving  beauty,  said  report — and 
then,   those   intoxicating    Spanish   dances!      Taglioni,   Cerito, 
Fanny   Elssler:   all  were  to  be  eclipsed.     Ranelagh's  glasses 
were  steadily  levelled   on  the  stage   from   the   moment    her 
i     entrance  was  imminent.     She  came  on.     There  was  a  murmur 
I     of  admiration — but  Ranelagh  made   no  sign.     And  then  she 
began  to  dance.    A  sense  of  disappointment,  perhaps  ?     But 
j     she  was  very  lovely,  very  graceful,    "like  a   flower   swept  by 
j     the  wind,  she  floated  round  the  stage  " — not  a  dancer,  but,  by 
George !  a  beauty.  .  .  .  And  still  Ranelagh  made  no  sign.    Yet 
j     no!     What  low  sibilant  sound  is  that?     And  then,  what  con- 
1     fused  angry  words  from  the  tribunal  ?     He  turns  to  his  friends, 
I     his  eyes  ablaze  with  anger,  opera-glass  in  hand.  .  .  .  And  now 
again,  the  terrible  "  Hiss-s-s ! ",  taken  up  by  the  other  box,  and 
the  words  repeated  loudly  and  more  angrily  even  than  before — 
the  historic  words  which  sealed  Lola's  doom  at  Her  Majesty's 

Iheatre  :  "  Why,  it's  Betty  James  !  " 


68  LOLA   MONTEZ 

It  was  Betty  James ;  and  James  was  the  woman's  married 
name.  Betty  was  not  her  name  at  all.  Betty  was  the  nom  de 
circonstance — the  mark  of  her  calling,  so  to  speak.  James,  the 
husband,  had  been  left  behind  in  India  when  his  wife  returned 
to  England  in  1842,  and  a  divorce  had  been  pronounced  in  the 
December  of  the  same  year — the  lady  making  no  defence.  And 
now  the  new  leaf,  inscribed  "  Lola  Montez,"  had  got  smudged  at 
the  very  beginning !  The  Era,  sworn  to  support  Lumley,  ex- 
hausted itself  in  panegyric :  "  As  in  a  dream,  an  Elssler  or  a 
Taglioni  descends  from  the  clouds.  Donna  Lola  enchanted 
every  one.  We  have  only  one  fault  to  find  with  the  dance- 
it  was  too  short."  .  .  .  No  use !  Ranelagh's  exclamation  had 
had  the  accent  of  truth  :  this  was  Betty  James — not  Donna  Lola. 
Moreover,  whichever  she  might  have  been,  she  could  not  dance. 
Lumley  flatly  refused  to  allow  her  to  appear  again,  for  Ranelagh 
the  Patron  was  wild  with  fury.  Under  his  behaviour  the  gossips 
scented  a  mystery :  was  he  a  rejected  lover?  In  a  curious,  flip- 
pant, scandalous  American  book,  with  the  extraordinary  title. 
You  have  heard  of  Them^  by  a  writer  calling  himself  "  Q,"  it 
is  more  than  hinted  that  Ranelagh  (during  the  period  of  study 
in  Madrid  which  the  "  Spanish  dancer  "  really  had  gone  through) 
had  approached  her  with  "  more  ardour  than  delicacy,"  and  had 
perhaps  received  one  of  those  boxes  on  the  ear  which  afterwards 
resounded  all  over  Europe,  America,  and  Australia.  But  what- 
ever he  had  had  to  endure  from  the  madcap  beauty,  he  had 
his  full  revenge  now ;  for  Betty  James  first  wept  bitterly,  then 
instantly  left  the  theatre — and  the  country. 


Who  was  she  ?  She  was  Marie-Dolores-Eliza- Rosanna 
Gilbert,  daughter  of  an  ensign  in  the  Forty-fourth  Foot,  who, 
against  the  wishes  of  his  father,  Sir  Edward  Gilbert  ("  more  Irish 
than  the  Irish ! "),  had  married  "  a  lovely  Creole  dancer,  Lola 
Oliver."  So  the  biographers  say ;  but  hear  the  daughter's 
version.  "My  mother  was  an  Oliver  of  Castle  Oliver;  her 
family-name  was  that  of  a  Spanish  noble  family  of  Montalvo, 
whose  blood  was  originally  Moorish.  Irish  and  Spanish- 
Moorish  blood  :  a  somewhat  combustible  compound  !  "     Dolores 


LOLA  MONTEZ  69 

("Lola")  was  born  in  Limerick  in  1818 — or  1824,  as  she  herself 
affirmed.  Alas !  the  six  extra  years  are  but  too  well  attested. 
.  .  .  The  old  Gilberts  cast  their  erring  son  to  the  winds  with 
his  lovely  Oliver  of  Castle  Oliver  ;  and  after  Lola's  birth  he 
went  to  India,  taking  his  young  wife  with  him.  In  1825,  he 
died  of  cholera,  leaving  the  seventeen-year-old  widow  penniless  ; 
but  she  quickly  married  again — this  time  a  Colonel,  Craigie  by 
name,  and  Deputy-Adjutant-General  of  the  Forces  in  India. 
Mrs.  Craigie  soon  settled  down,  and  became  "  quite  a  nice, 
decorous  person."  That  was  more  than  the  small  lovely  daughter 
did,  and  conscientious  Colonel  Craigie  ("  a  sort  of  Dobbin,"  we 
learn)  noticed  the  daily  deterioration.  Those  Hindu  servants ! 
Heaven  alone  knew  what  they  were  teaching  her — among  other 
things,  to  dance  "  in  their  style."  .  .  .  The  sooner  she  was  packed 
home  the  better  !  Home,  accordingly,  she  went  in  1826,  just 
eight  years  old ;  and  education  in  Scotland,  Paris,  Bath,  followed, 
Lola  signalizing  the  later  years  of  it  by  the  obligatory  flirtation 
with  her  music-master.  Her  mother  was  now  living  in  Bath,  but 
she  seemed  on  the  wing  for  India,  and  Lola  was  to  go  with  her, 
and  Lola  was  to  have  the  loveliest  dresses !  The  dresses  were 
a  little  too  lovely — they  almost  looked  like  trousseau-gowns. 
"  They  are  trousseau-gowns,"  said  a  young  Captain  Thomas 
James,  of  the  Twenty-first  Bengal  Foot,  whom  the  startled  girl 
consulted.  "Your  mother  wants  to  marry  you  to  an  old  man 
out  there — Sir  Abraham  Lumley,  a  rich  old  rascal  of  a  Judge, 
and  sixty  if  he's  a  day." 

"  But  what  shall  I  do.?" 

"  Elope  with  me,"  says  Captain  James — and  elope  they  did 
the  very  next  day  to  Ireland,  and  were  married  at  Meath  on 
July  23,  1837.  They  went  first  to  Dublin,  and  there  the  first 
indication  of  what  was  to  be  in  the  future  Lola's  peculiar  spell 
made  itself  apparent.  "  She  had  a  marvellous  fascination  for 
Sovereigns  and  Ministers,"  says  the  Dictionary  of  National  Bio- 
graphy ;  and  sure  enough,  the  Irish  Viceroy,  Lord  Normanby, 
fell  at  once  a  victim.  Captain  James,  who  was  genuinely  in  love, 
felt  very  unhappy.  Normanby  would  draw  his  bride  into  alcoves, 
would  whisper  intoxicating  flatteries  in  her  ear.  .  .  .  She  must 
come  away  from  Dublin !      He  took  her  down  to  his  country- 


70  LOLA  MONTEZ 

house  in  Westmeath,  where  the  only  distraction  (she  said)  was 
tea-drinking — and  we,  knowing  what  country-life  in  Ireland  is  for 
those  who  do  not  hunt  or  shoot,  can  affirm  that  when  she  said 
this  it  was  one  of  the  few  occasions  in  her  life  when  she  told  the 
truth.  Moreover,  James  had  proved  to  be  only  the  "outside 
shell  of  a  husband  ...  he  had  neither  a  brain  which  she  could 
respect,  nor  a  heart  possible  for  her  to  love,"  and  she  adds  the 
striking  aphorism  :  "  Runaway  matches  are  like  runaway  horses 
— sure  to  end  in  a  smash-up.  Better  hang  or  drown  yourself 
before  you  start." 

Not  much  foresight,  indeed,  was  needed  to  divine  the  future. 
After  the  Westmeath  period  they  sailed  for  India,  James  going 
to  rejoin  his  regiment.  On  board  ship  Mrs.  James  had  three 
admirers,  while  her  husband,  vigilant  only  for  Viceroys,  "  drank 
porter  and  slept  like  a  boa-constrictor."  The  Afghan  Campaign 
found  her  still  with  him,  however.  So  alert,  indeed,  had  James 
now  again  become,  that  he  would  not  leave  her  behind  and  took 
her  with  him  everywhere  in  a  palanquin.  Lola  thoroughly  enjoyed 
it ;  but,  to  quote  from  one  chronicler,  "  by  the  time  the  campaign 
was  over,  James's  happiness  was  over,  too."  Captain  Lennox, 
A.D.C.  to  Lord  Elphinstone,  was  the  co-respondent  in  the  un- 
defended action  for  divorce,  James  v.  James  :  heard  in  London 
on  December  i6,  1842.  She  had  gone  home  in  that  year,  as  we 
have  seen,  and  Lennox  had  been  on  board  the  same  ship.  He 
was  madly  in  love,  crazy  to  marry  her.  His  family,  however, 
stopped  that.  The  law  would  have  stopped  it  in  any  case,  for 
the  final  order  for  the  divorce  in  the  Consistory  Court  had  not 
been  made — and  even  Lola  never  quite  succeeded  in  being 
allowed  to  commit  bigamy  unmolested,  though  she  did^  in  later 
years,  commit  it,  and  took  refuge  in  Spain  to  escape  punishment. 


After  the  fiasco  at  Her  Majesty's,  we  hear  of  Lola  Montez  in 
Dresden,  Berlin,  Warsaw,  Paris  ;  and  wherever  we  hear  of  her,  we 
hear  of  scandals  too,  mostly  connected  with  boxes  on  the  ears 
and  horsewhips — and  strangely  monotonous,  when  the  first  shock 
of  novelty  is  over.  Berlin  saw  a  very  famous  interlude  in  this 
sort  with  a  gendarme.     During  some  manoeuvres,  her  horse  took 


LOLA  MONTEZ  71 

fright  at  the  shots,  and  ran  into  the  Sovereign's  entourage.  The 
gendarme,  horrified,  caught  the  horse,  hit  it  violently,  and 
violently  reproved  the  rider.  Out  flashed  the  horsewhip — and 
was  stoutly  used.  The  gendarme  brought  an  action  for  assault, 
but  to  no  purpose,  for  the  Sovereign  had  been  "  much  amused." 
Her  spell  was  evidently  working  again.  ...  In  Paris  she  failed 
once  more  as  a  dancer,  for  Paris  was  used  to  Taglioni.  ^'  I  am 
sick  of  being  told  I  can't  dance,"  cried  Lola.  The  things  Lola 
did  to  show  how  sick  she  was  of  it !  To  make  faces  at  the 
audience  was  a  mere  nothing:  silken  garters  were  flung  in 
their  faces,  attendants  were  of  course  horsewhipped — yet  Paris, 
odd  inconsequent  city,  remained  faithful  to  its  dull  Taglioni 
with  her  long  petticoats  !  Lola  was  not  concerned  with  petticoats 
— nor  with  still  more  necessary  garments  .  .  .  and  when  the 
maillot  was  actually  dispensed  with  one  night,  the  maddened 
manager  braved  the  lash,  and  cancelled  the  too-unconventional 
engagement. 

Albert  Vandam  met  her  in  Paris,  and  heard  many  con- 
fidences. He  kept  his  head — not  being  a  Sovereign  or  a 
Minister — and  regarded  her  with  clear,  critical  eyes.  "  That 
^w^j^-wonderful  woman  ! "  for  there  was  nothing  wonderful  about 
her,  he  says,  except  her  beauty  and  her  impudence.  "  She  had 
not  a  scrap  of  talent  of  any  kind,  nor  had  she  the  most  ele- 
mentary notions  of  manner  and  address ; "  but  he  frankly  adds 
that  many  men,  far  more  highly  gifted  than  himself,  were  com- 
pletely overthrown  :  "  they  raved  and  kept  raving  of  her." 

Dujarrier,  the  brilliant  young  journalist  who  worked  under 
Emile  Girardin  on  La  Presse^  was  her  lover  in  these  Paris 
days.  He  perceived  in  her  the  material  for  an  admirable 
political  spy — she  had  original  ideas,  an  original  way  of  ex- 
pressing them,  a  strong  mind,  capable  of  grasping  and  inter- 
preting situations,  and  "  generous  views  of  life."  He  undertook 
her  political  education,  and  turned  her  out  an  agitator,  an 
intriguer  of  the  first  order.  According  to  every  one  but  sceptical 
Vandam,  indeed,  he  made  her  also  into  an  accomplished  woman 
of  the  world,  a  hostess,  a  salonist  second  to  none — and  then 
Dujarrier,  only  twenty-nine,  was  killed  in  a  duel  forced  upon 
him  by  Beauvallon,  a  rival  journalist  on  Le  Globe.     It  was  the 


72  LOLA   MONTEZ 

famous  affaire  Beauvallon.  Dujarrier  was  said  to  have  been 
assassinated  :  the  arms  had  been  tried  all  the  morning  by  Beau- 
vallon, who  was  a  "  dead  shot,"  while  Dujarrier  knew  no  more  of 
pistols  than  a  baby.  "  I  don't  know  why  I'm  fighting,"  he  said 
pathetically  to  the  great  Dumas  on  the  day.  And  then  he 
exposed  himself  insanely,  all  unwitting  as  he  was,  and  the 
adversary  took  advantage.  .  .  .  There  was  a  huge  scandal. 
Beauvallon  was  tried  at  Rouen,  and  Lola  insisted  on  giving 
evidence.  She  had  met  her  lover's  dead  body  as  they  carried  it 
home,  had  thrown  herself  upon  it,  covered  the  face  with  kisses — 
and  Paris,  inconsequent  as  ever,  had  made  a  heroine  of  her  for 
five  days  !  Five  days  was  too  short  an  apotheosis  :  "  I  must  give 
evidence  at  Rouen." 

"  She  had  nothing  to  tell,"  affirms  Vandam  ;  "  she  merely 
wanted  to  create  a  sensation  ;  and  so  she  did  when,  dressed  in 
soft  masses  of  black  silk  and  lace,  she  raised  the  veil  from  her 
face  at  last " — and  the  court  breathed  one  long  sigh  of  ecstasy ! 
Young  Gustave  Flaubert  was  present,  and  some  one  said  excitedly 
to  him,  "  Doesn't  she  look  just  like  the  heroine  of  a  novel  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  said  the  future  creator  of  Madame  Bovary.  "  Except 
that  the  heroines  of  the  real  novels  enacted  in  every-day  life  do 
not  look  like  that." 

Dujarrier's  death  was  a  singularly  moving  tragedy,  but  he 
left  his  Lola  20,000  francs  and  shares  in  the  Palais- Royal,  so  the 
tragedy  proved  to  be  the  turning-point  in  her  career.  No  more 
singing  in  the  streets — she  had  done  that  in  Varsovia — no  more 
Ranelaghs  and  Normanbys  and  abominable  old  Polish  Princes 
like  him  who  had  brought  about  her  expulsion  from  Warsaw. 
The  curtain  was  really  going  up  this  time :  the  play  had  begun 
in  real  earnest.  Once  more  as  a  mere  dancer  she  might  be 
going  to  make  her  entrance — but  wait  and  see !  ' 


''There  was  a  king  in  Thule."  .  .  .  There  was  the  oddest 
king,  just  then,  in  Bavaria !  Ludwig  I. — "  a  Lovelace  with  a 
touch  of  the  Minnesinger  about  him,"  said  one  observer  ;  "  a 
mixture  of  Haroun-al-Raschid  and  Henri  IV.,"  said  another ; 
"  the  most  meritorious  and  remarkable  of  European  monarchs," 


•      ** » 


F.  Hanfstaeiisl 


LOLA   MONTEZ 

FROM    THli    I'lCTURE    BY   JOSEl'H    STIKLER    AT    MUNICH 


LOLA   MONTEZ  73 

declared  a  third.  We  can  put  together  an  eccentric,  lovable 
creature  out  of  these  materials :  a  king  who  had  ideals  as  well 
as  queer  ways,  who  saw  the  good  clearly,  though  he  made  for  it 
with  a  spiritual  gait  as  droll  as  his  physical  one.  He  had  come 
to  the  throne  filled  full  with  liberal  ideas.  He  had  ardently 
Wl.  desired  to  give  his  people  a  large  share  of  political  freedom,  for 
B  he  profoundly  admired  the  English  system  :  Reform  was  in  the 
m  very  forefront  of  his  programme.  But  then  came  the  Revolution 
Ry  of  1830.  He  paused.  And  while  he  paused,  the  Reactionary, 
^  the  Ultramontane,  Party  in  Bavaria  saw  their  opportunity.  They 
already  were  in  power ;  the  Ministry  was  purely  Ultramontane. 
It  had  been  hostile  from  the  first  to  the  King's  liberal  leanings  ; 
now  was  the  hour  to  press  opposition  home.  "  This  is  the  result 
of  those  liberties  which  you  propose  to  give  the  people."  So  the 
Jesuits  murmured  unceasingly  in  his  ear — and  at  last  their  subtle 
poison  worked.  The  King  renounced  his  ideas ;  despotism 
should  reign  again — but  a  benevolent  despotism  :  "  the  rod  in 
one  hand,  the  sugar-plum  in  the  other."  .  .  .  That  was  still  good, 
sentimental  Ludwig's  hope.  Only,  as  any  one  but  he  might 
have  known,  instead,  of  a  benevolent  despotism,  what  ensued  was 
black  bigotry :  Bavaria  was  thrall  to  the  "  most  insatiate,  arbi- 
trary, and  intolerant  of  all  foreign  mistresses — we  mean  the 
Church  of  Rome,  as  represented  by  the  Order  of  the  Jesuits." 
(So  T/te  Times  thundered  in  1848.)  The  disappointed  King  did 
all  he  could  to  forget.  He  threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the 
artistic  life  of  his  country,  he  made  Munich  a  metropolis  instead 
of  a  provincial  town,  he  worked  enormously,  spent  enormously, 
made  enormous  sacrifices.  .  .  .  But  for  all  his  goodness,  he  had 
"  odd  ways  that  made  the  people  laugh."  An  eccentric  born,  he 
never  taught  himself  to  accept  that  etiquette  which  is  the  Master's 
Master.  He  never  used  a  carriage  ;  he  walked  everywhere — 
and  he  went  everywhere.  Like  Haroun,  he  loved  the  surprise- 
visit  ;  unlike  Haroun,  he  was  ridiculous  in  his  excessive  jealousy 
for  his  authority.  He  would  knock  off  a  tardily-doffed  hat  with 
a  turn  of  the  wrist,  as  he  passed  the  delinquent  in  his  odd  zigzag 
progress.  He  had  a  picture-galleiy  filled  with  portraits  of  the 
"  beauties  "  who  had  come  to  Munich  from  every  quarter  of  the 
globe,  and  there  he  was  wont  to  sit  and  meditate — and  write 


74  LOLA  MONTEZ 

poetry !  A  king  who  writes  poetry  is  a  king  who  writes  his 
abdication  in  advance.  Ludwig  L,  come  to  the  throne  with  all 
sorts  of  liberal  projects  fermenting  in  his  brain,  was  now,  in  1847, 
the  tool  of  the  Ultramontane  Party — the  very  Party  he  had  sworn 
to  oppose.  Tall,  well-developed,  with  a  strongly-marked  angular 
face,  an  absent-minded  yet  piercing  glance,  the  most  peculiar 
walk  in  the  world — "  like  forked  lightning  " ! — and  the  most 
peculiar  dress  :  English  cutaway  coat  closely  buttoned  to  his 
spare  figure,  tight  trousers  with  gaiters,  a  hat  of  no  accepted 
shape  .  .  .  such  a  fox-hunting  country-squire  of  sixty  winters 
was  he  to  look  upon  when  Lola  Montez  came  to  Munich. 

She  came  as  a  dancer  to  the  theatre — another  beauty  for  the 
picture-gallery!  Perhaps  that  was  all  that  any  one  thought 
at  first  Ludwig  was  a  true  king  in  his  leaning  towards  the 
"pretty  horse-breaker"  type  of  woman.  "  Here's  a  new  dancer 
at  the  theatre,"  said  the  Jesuits.  "That  will  amuse  him,  that 
will  keep  him  from  interfering  with  affairs."  And  from  the  very 
first  night,  the  King  was  captivated.  He  lost  no  time,  or  per- 
haps it  was  Lola  who  lost  no  time.  .  .  .  Whichever  it  was,  in 
five  days  after  her  debM  the  King  formally  introduced  her  at 
Court,  saying  to  those  assembled:  "Gentlemen,  I  present  you 
to  my  best  friend." 

Is  not  the  curtain  up  }  This  is  a  dMt  indeed — the  One  and 
Only ;  and  Ranelagh  and  Betty  James  are  gone,  and  Dujarrier 
is  forgotten  and  all  his  "crowd"  in  Paris — Vandam  with  his 
covert  sneers  and  open  insolences,  Flaubert  with  his  epigrams, 
Dumas  .  .  .  What  was  it  Dumas  said }  "  She  has  the  evil  eye. 
She  will  bring  bad  luck  to  every  man  who  links  his  destiny  with 
hers^  When  Dujarrier's  dead  body  was  brought  back,  those 
words  had  jingled  in  our  ear  for  a  minute,  it  may  be.  But— 
Zut  alors,  gros  papa  Dumas  !  Here  we  are,  a  King's  Favourite. 
.  .  .  Or  was  it  quite  the  other  way.^  Was  Lola  the  paid 
agent  of  high  political  personages,  a  puppet  turned  out  by  the 
dead  Dujarrier,  and  now  bought  at  a  price  by  those  who 
were  hostile  to  Austria  ?  Biographers — she  had  twenty-four  ! — 
differ :  most  are  for  the  adventuress  pure  and  simple,  others  take 
her  seriously  as  a  factor  in  somebody's  game.  We  incline  to 
the  adventuress  theory.     Her  talk  with  Vandam  in  Paris  leaves 


LOLA  MONTEZ  75 

no  doubt  as  to  her  purpose  in  life.  "  Candour,"  he  says,  "  was 
her  best  trait,"  and  he  gives  us  indeed  a  striking  proof  of  that 
in  the  conversation  he  recounts,  where  she  passes  the  European 
monarchs  in  review,  and  comments  "  candidly  " — pass  the  kindly 
word ! — on  the  possibilities  of  each.  The  only  wonder  was  that  * 
she  should  have  hesitated  at  all  when  there  existed  Ludwig  of 
Bavaria.  From  1847  to  1848,  she  ruled  him  utterly.  Within  a 
month  of  her  arrival,  she  was  made  Countess  of  Landsfeld ;  a 
beautiful  house  was  then  built  for  her,  and  a  pension  accorded 
of  20,000  florins.  Von  Abel,  Ultramontane,  was  at  the  head  of 
the  Ministry.  At  first  there  was  harmony.  The  Jesuits  were 
making  their  plans  to  "use"  the  favourite,  and  she,  not  yet  au 
courant  with  affairs,  was  provisionally  acquiescent.  Then  Von 
Abel  struck  a  discord  boldly.  Like  another  Choiseul,  he  opposed 
the  public  shameless  liaison — and  at  once  the  Jesuits  were 
against  him.  Lola  dealt  with  the  situation  quite  methodically. 
Von  Abel  was  dismissed  from  office ;  Prince  Wallerstein,  his 
creature,  exalted  to  his  place ;  then  she  faced  the  Jesuits  and 
Austria.  For  with  fuller  knowledge,  she  now  saw  that  these  were 
her  rivals  with  the  King ;  she  could  not  wholly  subjugate  him 
until  they  were  gone.  What  should  be  her  banner  ?  Ah !  the 
Code  Napoleon,  that  Magna  Charta  of  France.  Ludwig  was 
well  inoculated  with  the  Code  Napoldon,  and  then  it  only  re- 
mained to  form  a  party.  But  this  was  not  easy,  for  she  was 
desperately  unpopular.  The  liaison  does  not  flourish  on  German 
soil,  and  Ludwig  was  tactless — humiliations  had  been  inflicted 
on  the  Queen.  She  was  forced  to  receive,  to  decorate  with  her 
own  Order,  the  Countess  of  Landsfeld.  Munich  gnashed  its 
teeth.  This  swearing,  horse-whipping,  ear-boxing  Countess, 
forsooth !  swaggering  down  our  streets  with  a  ferocious  bull-dog 
at  her  heels — a  bull-dog  who  has  an  unerring  scent  for  Jesuit 
priests.  .  .  .  Munich  hissed,  foamed  at  the  mouth:  should  she 
any  longer  be  suffered  }  Agitators  went  about  the  city,  stirring 
up  discontent  everywhere,  and  the  University  students,  ever 
spoiling  for  a  fight,  were  already  well  infected  when  what  does 
the  impudent  woman  do  but  try  to  add  an  "  Association  "  of  her 
own  to  the  historic  University  Five !  Allemania  she  called  it ; 
there  were  sixteen  or  twenty  of  them,  and  they  wore  bright 


76  LOLA   MONTEZ 

scarlet  caps.  The  Creature's  Creatures !  'Twas  not  to  be  borne. 
When  in  February,  1848,  Term  began,  there  was  open  war.  The 
Allemanien  were  hissed,  insulted,  hooted,  no  one  would  stay  in 
class  when  they  appeared — it  was  the  boycott  in  full  blast.  Very 
soon  it  was  riot  in  full  blast.  Daggers  flashed,  and  pistols 
threatened  to  flash ;  an  "  Alleman "  was  arrested,  and  Lola, 
summoned  to  his  rescue,  came  audaciously  alone.  The  coup 
failed ;  hearts  were  not  won — she  was  hustled,  insulted,  actually 
ill-treated;  the  Legation  shut  its  doors,  no  one  came  to  her 
rescue.  .  .  .  Stay — some  one  came :  the  King  himself.  He 
heard  of  the  tumult,  left  a  party  in  the  Palace,  rushed  to  protect 
his  Lolotte :  on  his  arm  she  was  led  to  safety,  and  turning,  as 
the  door  moved  to  behind  her,  she  fired  her  pistol  into  the  mob  ! 
It  hurt  no  one,  but  that,  we  may  be  sure,  was  not  her  intention. 
Next  week,  a  Royal  Decree  proclaimed  the  University  shut  for 
a  whole  year.  .  .  .  Now  it  was  no  longer  riot,  but  Revolution 
in  full  blast.  The  mob  held  the  city ;  Munich  demanded  the 
banishment  of  Lola  Montez.  Wallerstein,  whom  she  had  placed 
in  power,  was  the  most  insistent  of  all.  Ludwig  passionately 
refused  :  "  I  would  rather  lose  my  crown."  Grimly  the  Chamber 
of  Peers  regarded  him :  who  could  know  how  much  of  choice 
there  was,  how  long  poor  Ludwig  would  keep  either .?  For  the 
moment  there  was  no  choice :  Lola  Montez  must  go  ...  On 
March  17,  1848,  Munich  was  reading  this  decree : 

"We,  by  the  Grace  of  God  King  of  Bavaria,  etc.,  think  it 
necessary  to  declare  that  the  Countess  of  Landsfeld  has  ceased 
to  possess  the  rights  of  naturalization  in  Bavaria. 

"  Louis." 

And,  next  day : 

"Seeing  that  the  Countess  of  Landsfeld  .  .  .  does  not  re- 
nounce her  design  of  disturbing  the  peace  of  the  Capital  and 
country,  all  the  judicial  and  police  authorities  of  the  Kingdom 
have  received  orders  to  pursue  the  said  Countess  wherever  she 
may  be  found,  to  arrest  her,  and  carry  her  to  the  nearest  fortress, 
there  to  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  Law  "... 

But  by  that  time,  Lola  was  gone,  and  Ludwig,  maddest  of 
monarchs,  was  watching  the  sack  of  her  house,  and  getting  a 
looking-glass  broken  over  his  head  by  an  ardent  Patriot !     Was 


LOI.A  MONTEZ  77 

it  sentiment,  or  cynicism,  or  utter  insanity  at  last  ?  Perhaps  she 
came  back  on  purpose  to  see — for  she  did  come  back,  disguised 
as  a  boy,  and  had  a  three-hours'  interview  with  her  King.  What 
they  said,  what  either  desired,  history  knows  not  surely.  All  it 
does  know  is  that  Ludwig  "  was  forced  "  to  abdicate.  Promised 
to  abdicate,  said  Lola — "  for  I  could  not  endure  that  he  should 
himself  destroy  the  reforms  he  had  made.  It  was  best  for  his 
own  fame.  He  promised ;  and  Lola  went  out  in  her  boy's  dis- 
guise, to  look  upon  the  turrets  and  spires  of  Munich  for  the  last 
time."  Shall  we  give  her  the  last  word  t  It  must  have  been 
bitter  enough,  whatever  be  the  truth.  What  a  short  run  the  . 
play  had  had,  which  had  promised  so  well !  It  had  seemed  to 
be  going  to  run  as  long  as  we  liked,  and  then,  and  then  .  .  . 
was  it  the  horsewhip,  the  bull-dog,  the  thrashed  servants  ?  No, 
no!  it  was  the  Jesuits,  the  black  gentry,  the — the —  She  had 
all  the  epithets  at  her  tongue's  tip,  be  sure !  Did  she  again,  we 
wonder,  remember  fat  old  papa  Dumas  in  Paris  ?  Here  was 
another  man  who  had  linked  his  destiny  with  hers — and  into 
what  destruction  had  she  led  him  !  At  any  rate,  she  abandoned 
him  then,  to  work  out  the  rest  of  his  destiny  alone.  The  Countess 
of  Landsfeld  was  dead,  as  Betty  James  was  dead — but  still  there 
was  Lola  Montez. 

In  1849,  England — and  bigamy  :  a  cornet  in  the  Life-Guards, 
one  George  Trafford  Heald,  only  twenty-one,  married  her — and 
within  a  fortnight  of  the  marriage,  they  were  summoned  for 
bigamy.  That  final  order  had  not  been  made  out  yet !  They 
fled  to  Spain  for  safety,  "  and  there  she  is  said  to  have  borne  two 
sons  to  Heald."  And  then — Heald  accidentally  drowned  at 
Lisbon,  and  papa  Dumas  eerily  recalled  once  more.  .  .  .  After 
that,  all  downhill.  America,  Australia:  another  short-lived 
marriage  ;  horse-whippings,  a  fight  tooth-and-nail  with  a  lusty 
virago  at  Melbourne,  and  Lola  left  fainting  on  the  ground.  .  .  . 
Surely  the  last  word  of  squalor  ?  And  so  it  proved,  for  there 
came  lectures  on  the  Art  of  Beauty,  on  Gallantry,  on  Heroines — 
lectures  written  for  her  by  a  clergyman  !  They  were  quite  a 
success,  but  she  soon  ran  through  the  money.  Finally,  good 
works  and  another  clergyman  ;  conversion,  little  pious  books  ; 
a  Magdalen-Asylum-angel,  all  dark  hair  and  pallor  and  remorse. 


78  LOLA  MONTEZ 

Paralysis  then,  suffering,  death  in  1861  (aged  only  forty- three), 
and  a  tablet  to  her  memory  in  the  Greenwood  Cemetery,  New 
York. 

She  never  betrayed  a  secret.  Let  that  be  our  epitaph,  for 
somehow  we  do  not  quite  dislike  Lola  Montez.  "  Perhaps,"  she 
wrote  in  her  Autobiography,  "  the  noblest  courage  is,  after  all,  to 
dare  to  meet  one's  self"  Well,  she  shirked  that  adventure,  for 
never  did  autobiographist  embroider  more  bewilderingly — but 
it  was  vanity  that  lied,  not  fear.  The  frank,  clear  eyes  look 
back  at  us,  and  tell  us  we  are  right.  Lola  Montez  never  was 
afraid.  We  wish  she  had  been  more  like  her  eyes  in  other  ways  : 
they  are  so  charming ! 


THE     COURTESAN 


TULLIA  D'ARAGONA 

1505-1556 

AROUND  those  fanatics  of  the  soul  and  of  the  intellect 
whom  we  call  the  Platonist  women  of  the  Renaissance, 
there  floats  the  aroma  of  a  sort  of  divine  silliness  which 
proves  them  to  have  been  the  genuine  "  complex "  feminine 
article.  To  themselves,  no  doubt,  they  seemed  as  simple  as  to 
any  one  else  they  can  seem  enigmatic ;  for  that  is  the  mark  of 
true  complexity — to  be  passionately  convinced  of  its  own  entire 
simplicity.  Hence,  perhaps,  it  is  that  women,  who  from  the 
beginning  have  enjoyed  and  exploited  a  reputation  for  extreme 
incomprehensibility,  are  able  to  regard  these  illustrious  ladies 
with  a  more  humorous  eye  than  are  their  male  chroniclers. 
These,  for  the  most  part,  seem  reduced  to  the  secular  masculine 
device  of  waving  helpless  hands  and  "  giving  it  up."  Yet,  period 
apart,  customs  of  their  time  apart,  the  Platonist  Women  are  no 
more  perplexing  than  are  their  sisters  of  a  later  age.  Exquisite 
blunderers,  failing  in  a  purpose  through  one  method,  and  turning 
instantly,  with  woman's  incomparable  blend  of  perseverance  and 
forgetfulness,  to  its  direct  opposite,  they  seem  near  us  as  any 
madcap  of  to-day — inconsequent  yet  undeviating,  changeful  yet 
unchanged  ;  the  old  enigma  that  is  no  enigma,  the  sphinx  with 
the  secret  trembling  on  her  lips,  and  held  back  only  because  the 
potential  hearers  are  sceptical  of  understanding,  should  they 
consent  to  listen ! 

It  was  with  sincerity  and  ardour  that  they  made  their  experi- 
ments. No  playing  with  edged  tools  for  them,  but  earnest  and 
most  valiant  using  of  them.  Restless  we  call  them — yet  of  what 
patience  were  they  capable  ;  luxurious,  yet  no  ladies  of  any  age 
endured  more  hardships.  Read  an  account  of  almost  any 
G  81 


82  TULLIA  D'ARAGONA 

wedding !  The  bride  seemed  invariably  to  go  half-way  to  meet 
the  bridegroom,  and  the  depth  of  winter  was  the  fashionable 
season  for  marriages — the  depth  of  winter,  and  the  travelling- 
facilities  of  the  period  !  "  The  luckless  brides  had  to  face  heavy 
snowstorms  and  tempest,  cross  rivers  in  flood,  or  ride  over  the 
Alpine  passes  in  mid-December."  .  .  .  Eager  for  excitement, 
too,  these  ladies  have  been  dubbed — yet  through  what  almost 
fathomless  dullness  could  they  beautifully  wade!  Often  there 
rises  to  the  imagination  an  Italian  salon  of  those  days,  where  met 
the  lovely  and  the  learned  to  hear  and  join  in  those  "  disputes '' 
which  now  seem  so  interminably  vapid.  Such  a  salon,  for 
example,  as  that  of  Tullia  d'Aragona  in  Rome  or  in  Ferrara — 
Tullia,  "  one  of  the  most  famous  of  Italian  poetesses,"  say  some 
chroniclers  ;  "  a  courtesan,"  remarks  bluntly  another,  who  adds 
that  her  Book  on  Platonic  Love  had  a  wide  and  excellent 
influence ! 

"The  offspring  of  love,"  says  Roscoe,  austerely  gossipping 
under  cover  of  a  note,  in  his  Life  of  Leo  X.y  "  Tullia  is  said  not 
to  have  been  insensible  to  its  dictates."  "  She  was  the  child  of 
love,  and  she  lived  in  its  service,"  says  another  historian,  more 
ironically ;  and  John  Addington  Symonds  tells  us  that  in  a  rare 
tract  (with  an  impossible  title)  she  is  catalogued  among  the 
courtesans  of  Venice.  Crescimbeni,  in  his  Storia  della  Volgar 
PoesiUi  mentions  that  she  lived  "  for  a  short  time  there."  The 
short  time  and  the  rare  tract,  considered  together,  cannot  but 
make  the  judicious  grieve  ;  yet  let  them  not  condemn  her  hastily, 
for  if  heredity  be  the  force  we  now  believe  in,  how  should  Tullia 
d'Aragona  have  been  virtuous  }  She  was  the  natural  daughter 
of  Cardinal  Pietro  Tagliava,  Archbishop  of  Palermo,  himself  an 
illegitimate  descendant  of  the  Royal  House  of  Aragon,  which 
once  had  reigned  at  Naples ;  and  her  mother  was  the  most 
famous  beauty  of  her  day  in  all  Italy,  Giulia  di  Ferrara — toast  of 
Rome,  splendid  and  shameless  courtesan,  of  whose  sumptuous 
ways  of  living  contemporary  song-writers  satirically  rhymed, 
putting  their  boasts,  for  better  bitterness,  into  the  mouth  of 
the  lady  herself.  Tullia  set  up  house,  in  later  days,  at  that 
Ferrara  whence  her  lovely  mother  came.  "  Here  are  fair  streets 
and  very  handsome  palaces,"  says  one  Lassels,  who  visited  it  on 


TULLIA   D'ARAGONA  83 

his  travels;  and  he  adds,  with  deh'ghtful  inconsequence,  "But 
people  are  somewhat  thin." 

Alessandro  Zilioli,  the  most  attractive  of  Tullia's  biographers, 
says  with  an  ineffable  sweet  Italian  gravity,  that  the  Cardinal 
"  received  furtively  from  Giulia  this  little  girl."  At  any  rate,  he 
provided  for  her  handsomely  and  apparently  not  furtively,  since 
all  her  chroniclers  seem  well  informed  as  to  the  source  of  her 
income.  She  was  born  in  1505,  and  she  passed  her  childhood  in 
diligent  study  "  amid  the  delights  and  comforts  of  an  assured 
fortune,"  blossoming  bravely  in  the  exotic  atmosphere,  becoming 
indeed  a  wonder-child — remarkable  even  in  the  throng  of  wonder- 
children  of  that  epoch — for  at  the  awkward  age,  Tullia  "  would 
hold  arguments  and  disputations  with  many  very  learned  gentle- 
men." They  heard  her,  "not  without  stupor,"  says  delicious 
Zilioli.     One  seems  to  recognize  that  stupor. 

But  better  times  were  coming,  when  something  more  inspiring 
than  stupor  was  to  reward  her.  Tullia  was  to  come  into  her  own, 
prove  herself  true  woman — and  now  she  instantly,  as  the  saying 
goes,  takes  shape  for  the  imagination.  For  she  dressed  divinely ! 
All  her  chroniclers  are  men,  and  every  one  of  them  remarks  upon 
her  talent  in  this  sort.  In  those  days,  indeed,  there  was  little 
scope  for  originality  in  dress ;  gorgeousness  there  was,  but  indi- 
vidual good  taste  was  rare.  Grace,  the  imperative  qualification 
for  a  latter-day  beauty,  could  hardly,  one  thinks,  have  been 
perceptible  then — picturing  to  one's-self  the  stiff,  the  pitilessly 
boned  and  laced-up  jacket  which  was  "slipped"  (Maulde  la 
Clavi^re  tells  us)  ''^  into  the  wide-sleeved  damask  cloak."  The 
bodice  was  made  of  stout  cloth,  and  was  usually  crimson.  .  .  . 
But  furs  and  gems  and  lace  were  worn  as  well,  and  worn  in  full 
magnificence ;  caps  were  "  bossed  with  garnets  and  pearls," 
dresses  were  "buttoned  down  the  front  with  ruby  studs  and 
bound  with  lacets  of  massive  gold,"  white  velvet  gowns  were 
richly  trimmed  with  pearls ;  necklaces  and  tiaras  of  diamonds 
and  rubies  were  part  of  the  daily  afternoon  toilet ;  sleeves  were 
"  lined  with  ermine,  or  some  other  costly  fur  "  (they  were  surely 
oppressive  in  magnificence  for  indoor  wear) — Tullia  must  have 
swept  into  her  little  court  of  adorers,  glittering  and  glimmering 
like  a  Fairy-Queen  in  a  pantomime ! 


84  TULLIA   D^ARAGONA 

Zilioli  does  not  quite  approve.  Somehow  one  pictures  him  as 
a  grave,  sweet-faced  humorist,  recaUing  Tullia — and  others,  many 
others — with  searching,  mystical,  yet  appreciative  vision.  He 
does  not  approve,  but  he  understands.  "  She  looked  so  beautiful," 
he  says — tanta  leggiadria^  tanta  venustct — "  that  when  one  added 
to  the  charm  of  her  personality "  (he  speaks  out  bluntly  here !) 
"  tornamento  degli  ahiti  lascivi"  he  found  it  impossible  to  recall 
to  life  any  one  more  enchanting  than  Tullia  must  have  been. 

But  we  can  see  her  for  ourselves,  in  Bonvicino's  (II  Moretto's) 
portrait  of  her  in  the  Tosio  Gallery  at  Brescia.  Few  more 
exquisite  pictures  than  this  are  anywhere  in  the  world  to  be 
seen. 

"As  if  she  were  weary,  she  leans  her  arm  upon  a  marble 
slab.  .  .  .  She  wears  a  rich  dress  of  pale-blue  velvet,  half  covered 
by  a  pelisse  lined  with  red  velvet ;  and  in  her  hair  are  intertwined 
narrow  pale-blue  ribbons  with  strings  of  fine  pearls.  .  .  .  The 
Raphaelesque  grace  and  the  vigorous  Venetian  colouring  add  won- 
derfully to  the  charm  of  the  exquisite  face,  looking  out  with  large 
pensive  eyes — unforgettable  eyes,  the  sort  of  eyes  that  the  early 
love-poets  called  ardenti  stelle^  and  that  we  moderns  term  '  fatal.' 
The  oval  of  the  face  is  of  the  purest,  the  ear  is  exquisitely  delicate, 
the  hair,  parted  in  the  middle  and  slightly  waved,  is  clustered 
round  the  head  which,  leaning  to  the  left,  displays  to  perfection 
the  wondrous  line  of  the  neck,  like  a  proud  column  erected  in 
the  midst  of  the  laces  which  conceal  the  delicate  beauty  of  the 
shoulder.  The  hand,  issuing  also  from  a  mass  of  lace,  white  as 
polished  ivory  or  lucent  alabaster,  with  slender  fingers  and  rosy 
nails,  aristocratic  to  the  finger-tips,  is  painted  with  the  most 
caressing  tenderness  by  that  sovereign  brush."  * 

The  beauty  of  this  lady  was  celebrated  in  every  part  of  Italy. 
Her  own  poet,  Girolamo  Muzio — he  "  with  the  beautiful  soul " — 
has  a  stanza  to  those  unforgettable  eyes : 

" occhi  belliy 

Occhi  leggiadri^  occhi  aviorosi  e  cari, 

Et  a  me  .  .  . 

Pin  che  la  vita  cari  e  piii  che  VahnaV 

*  G.  Biagi.     £^«'  Etera  Ro7nana. 


TULLIA   D'ARAGONA  85 

Thus,  then,  she  looked  —  the  courtesan  whose  book  upon 
Platonic  Love  had  "  a  wide  and  excellent  influence." 

Platonic  Love !  The  subject  was  always  cropping  up,  just  as  it 
crops  up  among  ourselves.  But  in  Tullia's  salon,  they  did  at  least 
know  what  they  were  talking  about.  The  thing  which  masquerades 
as  Platonic  Friendship  with  us  is  different  indeed  from  what  Plato 
meant  by  love  —  for  love  was  what  he  called  it,  and  never 
friendship.  Comradeship  was  far  from  being  an  ideal  of  this 
intercourse  between  men  and  women.  On  the  contrary,  it  was 
all  reverence  and  devotion  ;  the  woman  was,  so  to  speak,  more 
queenly  than  the  queen.  One  of  the  lovely  Platonists  used  to 
make  her  adorers  kiss  her  feet.  It  must  be  added  that  she  wore 
the  most  exquisite  little  diamond-encrusted  slippers.  Still,  the 
posture  remained  exacting — and  must  have  sometimes  been,  one 
thinks,  immensely  inconvenient.  Nor  did  the  Lady  of  the  Diamond 
Slippers  escape  comment.  It  was  said  that  "she  went  too  far."  .  .  . 
But  how  removed  it  all  is  from  the  bousculade  of  our  Platonics ! 

TuUia,  we  may  say  frankly,  preached  in  her  Book  of  Platonic 
Love  what  she  did  not  dream  of  practising.  How  should  she  ? 
There  was  her  birth  to  begin  with ;  and  she  lived  surrounded  by 
n  ardent  coterie  of  brilliant  and  distinguished  men — poets  chiefly, 
but  men  of  affairs  as  well.  There  were  the  Cardinal  Ippolyto 
de'  Medici  and  the  great  Filippo  Strozzi ;  there  were  Ercole 
Bentivoglio,  Varchi  the  historian,  Pietro  Manelli  "  of  Florence," 
Arrighi  (one  of  her  most  devoted  slaves,  who  compared  her  to 
the  sun  and  Vittoria  Colonna  merely  to  the  moon),  Nardi,  who 
never  would  allow  a  light  word  about  her ;  there  was  that 
dazzling  and  magnetic  scoundrel,  Pietro  Aretino,  the  lion  of  Italy 
in  his  day ;  and,  most  of  all,  there  was  Girolamo  Muzio,  who  paid 
her  such  honour  in  his  verse  "  as  no  lady  of  the  time  had  ever 
received  from  a  man  of  letters." 

In  all  this,  she  was  happier  than  many  more  virtuous  ladies. 
Around  these  latter,  there  moved  for  the  most  part  what  Maulde 
la  Clavi^re  calls  "  the  cruel  welter  of  humanity.  A  whole  herd  of 
men  who  had  their  reasons  for  liking  the  tame  cat's  rdle,  and  who 
certainly  never  thought  of  love  unless  somebody  happened  to 
mention  it."  And  as  the  very  essence  of  Platonism  was  to 
"  interpret  love  .  .  .  through  impressions  and  sensibility,"  Tullia 


86  TULLIA  D'ARAGONA 

was  less  paradoxical  than  she  seems  at  first  sight.  It  was  more 
likely  that  she  should  be  tempted  to  respond  to  her  courtiers, 
"  atUrement  que  par  ks  vers,''  than  the  other  women  to  yield  to 
their  less  dazzling  intimates.  But  in  the  matter  of  verses,  she  was 
lavish,  and  very  exacting  too.  Avid  of  flattery  was  TuUia,  and 
not  fastidious  about  the  forms  which  her  praise  might  take. 
"  Adulation,"  says  Teoli,  in  his  Preface  to  her  Dialogo  deW  Infinitd 
deW  Aniore,  "was  a  nectar  which  she  could  sip  with  enjoyment 
from  any  sort  of  cup — and  she  was  never  satiated,  nor  even 
satisfied."  Thus,  when  the  devoted  Muzio  once  "showed 
symptoms  of  hoarseness  (!),  she  pricked  him  up  with  a  poem  " — a 
reproachful,  almost  tearful  poem  ;  but  Teoli  does  not  tell  us 
whether  Girolamo  was  ready  with  an  answer.  He  was,  at  all 
events,  clearly  not  of  jealous  disposition,  for  in  his  Eclogue 
Tirreniay  he  says,  speaking  of  his  love  (the  lady  stood  for  Tullia), 
that  every  shepherd  who  knows  the  exquisite  nymph  not  only 
loves  her  himself,  but  desires  that  all  the  other  shepherds  should 
do  the  same. 

"  The  Cardinal's  purple  united  to  the  saffron  veil  of  the 
courtesan  ! "  exclaims  Teoli,  in  a  coloured  phrase  which  seems  to 
set  vividly  before  us  the  radiant  creature — her  exquisite  toilets, 
her  eyes,  her  enchanting  manners ;  her  singing  and  her  playing 
upon  divers  instruments.  Truly,  a  Queen  of  Courtesans,  proud 
too  of  her  literary  glory  (which  was  in  those  days  a  little 
unconventional  of  her),  greedy  of  flattery,  but  generous  in  giving 
as  good  as  she  got — "  Illtistrissimo"  "  Nobilissimo"  ^^Osservan- 
tissima  "...  all  the  compliments  swarm  at  her  pen's  point.  No 
wonder  that  a  Pasquinade  got  written  :  Passione  damor  di 
maestro  Pasquino  per  la  partita  delta  Signora  Tullia^  with  its 
hint  at  the  martyrdom  in  Rome,  and  the  felicity  in  Bologna, 
whither  she  was  going  for  a  while  ! 

Moreover,  this  frequentation  of  the  salon  of  a  cultured  woman 
of  her  class  was  no  new  thing.  Men  had  felt,  in  older  societies 
than  this,  the  need  of  intercourse  with  women  more  deeply  versed 
in  life  than  was  the  average  fine-lady.  In  Greece  and  Rome  it 
had  been  so  ;  now  Ferrara  and  Bologna  and  modern  Rome  were 
following  suit.  These  courtesans  formed  a  clique;  admission 
to  their  circle  was  not   easy;   their  salons  were  distinguished, 


TULLIA  D'ARAGONA  87 

delightful,  and  perfectly  decorous;  they  were,  in  fact,  "abso- 
lutely indistinguishable  from  virtuous  women,  except  that  their 
manners  were  a  trifle  more  correct." 

Another  reason  for  this  ascendency  was  that  there  were  very 
few  great  ladies  in  Rome.  Women  were  not  allowed  to  stay  at 
Court,  since  "  Court "  was  the  Vatican.  All  the  world  has  heard 
the  exclamation  of  the  illustrious  Bernardo  Domizio  da  Bibbiena, 
that  Admirable  Crichton  of  prelates,  the  intimate  friend  of  Leo 
X.,  and  author  of  a  sensationally  successful  drama  written  in 
imitation  of  Plautus,  and  called  Calandra.  This  Bibbiena, 
hearing  a  rumour  that  Philiberta  of  Savoy,  the  half-sister  of  Leo, 
light  possibly  be  coming  to  live  at  Court,  uttered  a  great  sighing 
)und  of  exultation.  "  God  be  praised  !  "  he  said.  "  All  we  lack 
a  Court  with  women  in  it."  But  Philiberta  did  not  come,  or  if 
le  did,  she  was  not  allowed  to  stay.  .  .  .  And  so,  in  the  dearth 
great  hostesses,  it  was  to  the  women  of  pleasure  that  the 
brilliant  men  turned  for  solace. 

Conversation  was  the  social  virtue  of  the  time,  and  conversa- 

>n  in  the  true   sense   being  impossible  without  women,  these 

idies   filled  a   niche   that  was   unendurable  when   empty,  and 

illed  it  to  perfection — Tullia,  apparently,  best  of  all.     When  she 

Ls  about  twenty-seven,  she  went  to  Ferrara  for  a  time  ;  and  a 

)ntemporary  letter,  dated  June   13,  1537,  gives  an  enthusiastic 

lescription  of  her.     It  was  written  to  Isabella  d'Este,  "  la  prima 

mna  del  mondol^  by  a  correspondent  signing  himself — one  hopes 

)t  too  fatuously — "Apollo."     Apollo  tells  Isabella  in  glowing 

inguage  all  about  the  pretty  lady  who  has  come  upon  the  town 

id  is  turning  the  men's  heads.     "  So  staid  she  is  in  deportment," 

'he  says,  "  so  fascinating  in  manner,  that  we  cannot  help  finding  in 

her  something  divine.  ...  Her  conversation  has  matchless  charm  ; 

she  knows  everything,  and  there  is  nothing  you  cannot  talk  to  her 

about.     No  one  here  can  hold  a  candle  to  her,  not  even  Vittoria 

Colonna."     Again  the  juxtaposition  !     Arrighi  had  not  been  able 

to  compare  Tullia  to  the  sun  without  assigning  the   moon   to 

Vittoria  Colonna  ;   Apollo  also  has  his  fling  at  the  faultless  lady. 

Apparently  it  was  inevitable  :  think  of  Tullia,  and  you  thought  of 

Vittoria. 

Beautiful  and  witty  as  our  sumptuous  Tullia  was,  it  was  not 


88  TULLIA   D'ARAGONA 

for  these  charms  only  that  she  was  adored.  She  had  all  the 
frankness,  the  vividity,  which  are  the  more  delightful  marks  of  her 
type  ;  and  she  had,  besides,  the  inestimable  advantage  of  knowing 
human  nature  to  the  core.  In  a  word,  she  was  disillusioned  ;  she 
had  learnt  the  great  secret  of  happiness  here  below — not  to 
demand  too  much.  And  yet  she  had  a  superb  faith  in  the 
ultimate  power,  the  ultimate  triumph,  of  love — love  as  a  motive- 
force,  love  as  "the  magnificent,  the  admirable  madness  which 
alone  produces  great  enterprises  : "  that  faith  which,  like  the  wide 
free  way  of  her,  belongs  also  to  the  best  of  her  type  :  the 
Romantic,  the  Adventurer.  .  .  .  Adventurer,  not  Adventuress ! 
Tullia  was  as  far  as  the  impeccable  Vittoria  herself  from  being 
Adventuress.  Maulde  la  Claviere,  in  his  sympathetic  mention  of 
her,  says  that  "  if  she  continued  to  live  the  life  to  which  she  was 
born,  she  brought  to  it  a  contempt  of  money  which  was  in  itself 
a  purifying  virtue."  She  was  immensely  proud,  too,  of  her 
illustrious  descent,  as  were  many  of  the  great  courtesans. 

In  this  influence  of  theirs  we  perceive  the  amazing  paradox 
of  Platonism.  That  the  virginity  of  the  heart  survives  those 
ordeals  of  the  flesh  in  which  the  heart  has  had  no  concern,  is  one  of 
its  cardinal  doctrines :  the  heart's  virginity  is  the  true  virginity. 
It  was  a  counsel  of  perfection,  yet  it  opened  a  wide  field — ! 
And  in  the  "  cruel  welter  of  humanity  around  women,"  one 
supposes  that  even  the  Tullias  came  by  some  scars,  and  turned 
from  sordid  reality  to  dreams. 

One  pictures  her,  for  example,  free  from  her  liaison  with  the 
great  Filippo  Strozzi,  resuming  her  evenings  in  the  salon  at 
Rome,  turning  back  to  her  poets,  who  followed  her  about  with 
sonnets  and  canzones  like  "hungry  greyhounds"  (Zilioli  is 
responsible  for  the  phrase  !),  and  to  the  historian  Varchi,  that 
learned  and  cultured  Florentine,  from  whom  chiefly  she  acquired 
her  fine  style  and  her  distinguished  language.  .  .  .  Yet  Filippo 
Strozzi  was  a  big  personality  in  his  own  way.  Banker,  politician, 
literary  amateur,  and  man  of  pleasure  was  he — notorious  in  the 
last-named  role,  which  he  knew  how  to  combine  with  the  most 
admirable  attention  to  business.  He  would  write  a  letter — a 
despatch,  more  justly,  since  it  occupies  sixty-four  lines  of  small 
print,  and  he  would  scribble  gaily  at  the  end  of  it,  "  Written  in 


TULLIA  D'ARAGONA  89 

much  haste,  and  with  Tullia  by  my  side."  The  business  was  of 
the  highest  importance  ;  Tullia  no  doubt  was  interested  in  it — she 
would  hardly  else  have  permitted  such  prolonged  neglect  ? 
Merely  to  have  permitted  it,  however,  indicates  the  closest 
intimacy :  such  are  the  extremes  by  which  women  reveal  them- 
selves to  posterity.  .  .  .  The  end  of  the  affaire  Strozzi  was  drawing 
near,  nevertheless  ;  for  it  was  hardly  more  than  a  month  before 
another  letter  was  written,  in  which  the  gentleman  had  nothing 
prettier  to  say  than  that  he  would  no  more  make  a  fool  of  him- 
self about  Tullia  than  about  any  other  woman.  "  Women's 
society  he  cannot  live  without ; "  and  that  being  so,  he  finds  her 
company  more  amusing  than  that  of  others.  "  She  is  not  beau- 
tiful," he  adds — how  lyingly,  we  know.  .  .  .  One  hopes  that 
Strozzi  soon  had  to  do  without  that  amusing  company ;  and  it  is 
a  momentary  joy  to  find  that  the  famous  Dialogo  delV  Infinitd 
deir  Amove  is  dedicated  to  Cosimo  de*  Medici,  himself  a  low- 
minded,  dissolute,  and  cruel  tyrant,  but  at  any  rate  the  deter- 
mined and  deadly  enemy  of  Filippo  Strozzi,  who  put  himself 
to  death  sooner  than  remain  under  the  power  of  this  man — 
to  whom,  alas !  Tullia  wrote  a  sonnet  of  the  most  eulogistic 
description,  beginning  Almo  Pastor  !  (Language  apparently  then 
fulfilled  the  ideal  of  Talleyrand.)  The  sonnet  in  question  was 
written  only  two  years  after  Strozzi's  death. 


"  It  is  better  to  be  loved  than  to  love,"  says  our  Platonist 
in  her  famous  Dialogue ;  and  her  reason  for  this  was  that  "  in 
being  loved,  we  are  exerting  influence,  while  in  loving,  we  are 
merely  passive  agents  of  the  motive  force."  The  argument 
sets  one's  brain  awhirl,  somehow ;  and,  sure  enough,  the  carry- 
ing out  of  its  teaching  by  the  women  was  not  conspicuously 
successful.  They  were  caught,  as  women  are  apt  to  be  caught, 
in  their  own  traps  :  the  parts  were  all  too  soon  reversed,  for 
instead  of  receiving  love,  the  ladies  gave  it.  The  men  ?  Well, 
the  men  were  the  immemorial  ingrates ;  and  then  the  women, 
failing  by  one  means,  tried  another.  Since  the  fire,  in  Meredith's 
phrase,  was  dying  in  the  grate,  they  would  look  for  kinship  with 
the  stars — they  would  have  a  Dialogo  delV  Infinitd,  delV  Amore! 


90  TULLIA  D*ARAGONA 

This  Dialogue,  Tullia's  most  famous  work,  was  of  her  later 
age.  Girolamo  Muzio  must  have  been  in  his  full  influence  then — 
for  he  had  it  printed  without  her  consent,  and  not  only  that,  but 
he  even  altered  it  in  a  very  important  particular.  She  had  intro- 
duced herself,  as  one  of  the  "  disputants,"  under  a  feigned  name  ; 
but  Varchi  and  the  poet  Benucci  (another  intimate)  were  figured 
in  their  own.  Muzio,  evidently  a  delicate  critic,  considered  that, 
for  dear  symmetry's  sake,  Tullia  also  must  yield  her  anonymity 
— and  sent  the  manuscript  with  this  correction  to  the  printer ! 
He  was  justified  of  his  daring  ;  no  doubt  he  knew  his  lady's  weak 
point,  that  fancy  for  "  nectar  out  of  any  cup  " — and  Varchi  and 
Benucci  are  most  generous  libationers  ! 

The  thing  is,  to  our  modern  notions,  a  monstrously 
tedious  piece ;  but  that  was  far  from  being  the  contemporary 
opinion.  Crescimbeni  speaks  of  it  with  enthusiasm ;  the  more 
critical  Mazzuchelli,  with  approval  ;  and  it  was  read  and  quoted 
by  all  the  intellectual  world  of  Rome  and  Ferrara.  At  the 
British  Museum,  a  little  charming  crimson  volume  enshrines  it, 
along  with  other  tracts  published  in  a  Biblioteca  Rara^  which  has 
an  amusing  resemblance  to  our  latter-day  reprints.  The  preface 
— then,  it  would  seem,  as  inevitable  as  now — has  a  quaint  device 
of  only  half-printed  pages.  There  is  a  subtle  modesty  in  this 
arrangement  which  is  very  Italian.  "  These  are  but  notes,"  the 
preface  seems  modestly  to  plead  in  excuse  for  itself— a  very 
proper  attitude.  But  the  author  of  it,  one  Carlo  Teoli,  has  a 
saying  which  would  vindicate  any  preface.  Speaking  of  Muzio's 
poetry,  he  observes :  "  It  loses  enormously  by  comparison  with 
the  prose  of  Zilioli,  so  true  is  it  that  the  least  eloquent  of  mortals  is 
the  happy  lover  "  ! 

Muzio  was  happy ;  but  the  fire  was  dying  in  Tullia's  grate. 
Not  long  afterwards,  she  finally  abandoned  her  Rome,  her 
Ferrara,  and  went  under  the  protection  of  the  Duchess  Leonora 
of  Toledo,  a  virtuous  and  cultured  patroness  of  literature,  to  live 
in  Florence.  "She  was  growing  old,"  says  Zilioli,  with  his 
merciless,  gentle  gravity.  At  any  rate,  she  was  growing  cold.  It 
was  at  this  time  that  she  wrote  her  poem  (adapted  from  the 
Spanish,  she  said ;  but  the  philologists  are  against  her),  // 
Meschino^  o  il  Guerino — "  for   young  ladies."     She   too  had   a 


TULLIA  D'ARAGONA  91 

preface;  and  with  the  true  convert's  touch,  she  sings  in  it  a 
rhapsody  of  reading,  that  joy  which  no  one  can  take  from  us, 
which  is  spoilt  by  no  admixture  of  human  frailty,  human  com- 
plexity, human  falseness.  .  .  .  Stay,  though!  Boccaccio's 
Novelle  are  "villainous",  (and  she  has  read  them  all),  Boc- 
caccio is  the  serpent  in  the  Paradise:  do  not  on  any  account 
read  Boccaccio  !  .  .  .  He  had  his  revenge.  She  promised  in  the 
new  work  a  perfect  propriety,  an  unsullied  page;  nothing  like 
Boccaccio  should  be  found  in  this.  Mazzuchelli  makes  the  grim 
comment  that  "  she  did  not  succeed  in  keeping  her  word,"  and 
TroUope,  with  that  Puckish  glee  of  his,  remarks  that  this  compo- 
sition, ostensibly  intended  as  a  maiden's  bedside-book,  is  of  a 
nature  which  any  member  of  either  sex,  at  any  age,  would  find 
^  extremely  racy  reading ! 

t^  TuUia  then  was  Tullia  to  the  end,  despite  good  works — 
^Bshe  •*  went  in  "  for  good  works  at  Florence — and  the  patronage 
HFof  a  great  lady.  But  the  Duchess  accepted  the  dedication  of  // 
~  Meschino^  and  indeed  of  all  Tullia's  works  from  that  time 
forward,  to  herself. 

There  is  a  curious  passage  in  a  comedy  entitled  Balia^  by  the 
poet  Razzi,  where  one  of  the  characters,  speaking  of  Tullia 
d'Aragona,  uses  a  gross  word  of  the  people  to  describe  her.  .  .  . 
Two  men,  a  young  one  and  an  older.  Mentor-like  friend,  are 
talking  of  a  woman,  with  regard  to  whom  the  former's  opinion  has 
apparently  undergone  a  rapid  and  drastic  change.  He  now,  at 
any  rate,  declares  that  he  has  known  no  nobler  specimen  of 
her  sex ;  and  his  friend,  in  the  irritating  manner  of  friends, 
reminds  him  that  not  long  ago  he  had  employed  this  untrans- 
latable word  in  speaking  of  her.  The  other  makes  this  striking 
reply : — 

"  I  am  not  sure  that  many  of  the  noblest  women  have  not 
borne  that  name.  They  talked  like  that  about  Tullia  d^Aragona^ 
for  instance."  "  Is  the  end  of  love  its  limit } "  she  had  asked,  in 
the  renowned  Dialogo,  With  her,  how  plainly  it  was  not !  She 
lives  for  us  now,  not  by  the  writings  which  were  then  so  famous, 
but  by  the  vivid  and  radiant  personality  she  had,  by  the  mistakes 
and  the  splendid  faith — in  a  word,  by  her  perfect  femininity,  which 
pierced  through  all  the  learning  and  the  pedantry,  and  through 


92  TULLIA  D^ARAGONA 

that  license  which  left  her  still,  in  Razzi's  and  Nardi's. minds  at  any 
rate,  "  among  the  noblest  women." 

Once,  long  ago,  a  Sophist  Philosopher,  called  Stilpone,  said 
bluntly  to  Glycsera,  Queen  of  Tarsus  and  Menandras,  ''You 
corrupt  our  young  men." 

"  What  does  that  matter  ? "  answered  she, "  so  long  as  I  delight 
them }  You,  O  sophist,  corrupt  them  in  your  own  way  quite  as 
much  as  I  do — and  bore  them  into  the  bargain."  That  answer 
might  have  sounded  in  a  Mayfair  drawing-room — and  thus  the 
ages  come  together,  for  Tullia  used  to  laugh  at  Calvin  and  Ochino 
(the  renowned  preaching  monk),  and  taunt  them,  not  unjustly, 
with  a  blind  prejudiced  distrust  of  all  the  joy  of  life.  They  could 
not  distinguish,  she  averred,  between  the  harmful  and  the 
harmless. 

Perhaps  a  still  closer  link  will  seem  to  be  forged  when  we  add 
that  on  the  8th  of  January,  1 543,  at  Siena,  Tullia  was  married  to 
a  Ferrarese  gentleman,  called  Silvestro  dei  Guicciardi.  (She  was 
then  thirty-eight.)  Nothing  of  him  is  known  but  his  name : 
TuUia's  husband  was  plainly — Tullia's  husband !  Four  years 
later — the  husband  being  dead — she  had  the  most  unpleasant 
episode  of  her  life  to  go  through.  Duke  Cosmo  had,  a  year 
earlier,  promulgated  a  sumptuary  decree  by  which  courtesans 
were  compelled  to  wear  the  Yellow  Veil.  This  was  a  head- 
covering  with  a  stripe  of  gold  in  silk  or  some  other  yellow 
material,  a  finger  wide,  and  worn  in  such  a  position  that  it  could 
be  seen  by  every  one.  Tullia  had  never  dreamed  that  this  ignominy 
could  reach  her,  though  some  years  before  she  had  had  a  little 
trouble  at  Siena.  But  she  had  escaped ;  and  now,  a  widow,  she 
thought  herself  quite  safe.  In  April,  1547,  the  blow  fell.  She 
was  summoned  to  give  reasons  for  disobeying  the  law.  In  her 
despair,  she  appealed  to  Don  Pedro  di  Toledo,  nephew  of  her 
patroness,  the  Duchess  Eleonora.  He  advised  her  to  show  the 
Duchess  all  the  sonnets  which  had  been  written  to  her  by  distin- 
guished men !  Clearly,  he  did  not  know  what  to  say,  and  took 
refuge  in  this  most  inept  suggestion — which,  whether  Tullia 
followed  or  not,  she  treated  as  inadequate ;  for  she  appealed  also, 
in  an  eloquent  letter,  to  her  old  friend  Varchi. 

"Poor   lady!   humiliated   by  her   evil   fortune,  she  did   not 


TULLIA   D'ARAGONA  93 

attempt  any  resistance  to  the  laws,  she  did  not  rebel  against  the 
magistrates,  as  she  had  done  at  Siena — nor  did  she  disdainfully 
leave  the  city  which  had  treated  her  so  ungraciously.  No ;  she 
bent  her  head,  and,  weary  and  cast-down,  implored  mercy.  Even 
in  writing  to  Varchi,  she  shows  how  broken  is  her  spirit :  no 
recalling  of  past  joys — she  writes  as  to  a  kind  friend  and  patron 
only.  .  .  .  The  courtesan  is  always  superstitious  and  a  fatalist :  at 
the  first  discomfiture,  the  first  reverse  of  fortune,  she  loses  heart 
and  gives  way  altogether."  * 

But  the  Duchess  did  save  her  from  the  Yellow  Veil. 

She  died  March  14,  1556,  at  Parma,  "having  hoped  that  she 
would  not  live  to  be  really  old." 

Fifty-one — did  she  think  it  really  old,  we  wonder!  Her 
valiant  scorn  of  money  had  lasted,  had  played  her  an  ill  turn,  for 
she  died  in  dire  destitution.  "  Dressed  in  a  black  serge  garment, 
pale,  her  hair  wound  simply  round  her  head,  her  great  wistful 
eyes  staring  into  vacancy — the  courtesan  lay,  her  body's  beauty 
ruined  by  the  ravages  of  a  cruel  disease.  Of  the  renowned  love- 
liness, there  was  barely  a  trace — only  in  the  radiancy  of  the  pupils, 
in  the  thinned  oval  of  the  face,  in  the  waxen  whiteness  of  the 
hands.  .  .  .  Amid  the  green  hangings  of  her  bed,  with  the  white 
linen  about  her,  this  woman,  clothed  in  black,  stretching  out  upon 
the  counterpane  her  unimaginably  slender  hands,  seemed  like  the 
phantom  of  the  sumptuous  courtesan."  * 

Her  belongings  had  to  be  sold  to  provide  for  her  funeral ;  they 
realized  twelve  crowns  and  a  half.  She  had  had  a  son,  Celio,  whom 
she  was  never  able  to  have  with  her ;  to  him  she  left  all  she  had 
to  leave,  except  some  clothes  and  small  gifts  of  money,  which  she 
assigned  to  her  two  women-servants. 

Muzio  survived  her  by  ten  years.  We  must  suppose,  there- 
fore, that  love  had  not  been  "  infinite  " — that  she  never  realized 
the  Dream  of  the  Dialogue.  He  was  fickle,  Crescimbeni 
and  Biagi  seem  to  hint.  .  .  .  And  she }  Perhaps  she  never 
loved  at  all ;  perhaps  she  was,  as  her  latest  biographer  describes 
her,  "content  to  be  loved  and  courted  without  taking  things 
too  seriously ;  the  graces  of  her  spirit  vanquished  those  of  her 
heart." 

*  G.  Biagi.     Wn''  Etlra  Romana. 


94  TULLIA  D'ARAGONA 

She  gave  instructions  that  she  was  to  be  buried  beside  her 
mother  in  the  Church  of  Sant'  Agostino — her  mother,  the  beauti- 
ful, the  sumptuous,  the  shameless  "  Giulia  of  Ferrara."  .  .  .  How 
one  likes  to  know  it  of  the  beautiful  daughter,  the  daughter  with 
the  unforgettable  eyes ! 


NINON  DE  LENCLOS 

I 620- I 705 

"  ^  HE  did  just  what  she  liked." 
_      ^^       The  valiant  lady !     If  only  her  chroniclers  would  not 
1^     W^  enjoin  upon  us  an  awful  reverence,  we  think  we  could 

be  very  much  at  ease  with  Ninon  de  Lenclos.  But  one  is  positively 
frightened  off.  "She  was  a  problem  even  for  her  own  time." 
"  One  must  be  a  philosopher  to  appreciate  her  fully."  "  No  writer 
could  render  such  a  character  " — what  adulation  is  implicit  in  all 
this  !  It  is  at  the  risk  almost  of  life  that  one  may  criticise  her,  or 
presume  to  think  that  one  understands  her.  The  truth  is  that 
here  we  have  another  proof  of  male  arrogance.  Every  one  of 
these  reverential  gazers  is  a  man — and  it  is  amusing  to  find,  as 
we  read,  that  all  that  was  admirable  in  her  was  attributed  in  her 
own  day  to  that  famous  declaration  of  hers :  "  I  saw,  as  soon  as  I 
began  to  reflect,  that  our  sex  has  been  burdened  with  all  that  is 
frivolous,  and  that  men  have  reserved  to  themselves  the  right  to 
the  essential  things  and  qualities.  From  that  moment,  I  resolved 
to  make  myself  a  man."  "  She  did  it,  and  did  it  well,"  remarks 
a  "  confessing  "  Comte  de  Something.  ...  It  will  be  interesting 
to  examine  the  process,  and  all  that  resulted  from  it. 


She  was  born  in  early  November,  1620,  and  was  an  only 
child.  Her  parents  were  singularly  contrasted  in  character. 
The  father  was  "  voluptuous  and  addicted  to  the  pleasures  of 
the  table  "...  not  only  of  the  table,  one  may  conjecture.  He 
v/as  an  exquisite  player  on  the  lute,  and  this  lovely  talent  he 
transmitted  to  his  daughter  Anne — otherwise  "Ninon,"  the 
irrelevant  French  diminutive  of  that  austere  name.     Her  mother 

95 


96  NINON  DE  LENCLOS 

was  Marie-Barbe  de  la  Marche,  uninteresting,  plain,  devout,  and 
retiring.  How  came  Lenclos  to  marry  her?  We  may  safely 
guess  that  she  was  a  neglected  wife.  The  father  it  was  who 
lived  again  in  the  daughter.  Each  loved  her,  but  the  mother 
entirely  failed  to  influence  her.  That  is  often  the  case — fathers 
and  daughters  have  the  closer  affinity ;  and  Lenclos  was,  so  to 
speak,  her  born  father.  Madame  Lenclos  tried  her  best,  but  she 
overdid  piety ;  she  forced  the  child  to  read  good  books,  to  go 
to  church — and  already  at  thirteen  Ninon  was  blaspheming 
brilliantly.  She  shocked  her  circle  in  Passion-Week  by  a 
cynical  quotation  from  a  popular  Spanish  song  of  the  moment ; 
Madame  called  in  a  Jesuit  to  lecture  her.  After  listening 
attentively,  the  culprit  airily  remarked  that  religion  was  all 
imagination — not  a  word  of  it  was  true.  .  .  .  From  this  position 
she  never  retreated  :  in  later  years  she  went,  indeed,  much  farther. 
"  A  person  who  needs  the  help  of  religion  to  get  through  life  is 
much  to  be  pitied  :  it  is  a  certain  sign  either  of  lacking  intelligence 
or  a  very  corrupt  heart."  Well !  it  was  the  fashion  to  be  sceptical, 
and  "Ninon  was  always  in  the  fashion,  though  she  was  so 
different  from  everybody  else,"  says  the  Ahh6  de  Chateauneuf. 

Lenclos  fled  from  France  in  163 1,  after  having  murdered  a 
Baron  de  Chabans  ;  but  he  had  stamped  himself  indelibly,  before 
he  went,  on  his  eleven-year-old  daughter,  as  the  Passion-Week  of 
1633  was  to  prove.  She  was  precocious,  and  of  course  naughty : 
she  had  read  Montaigne  at  ten  ;  she  danced  sarabands,  played 
the  lute,  liked  men's  compliments  and  was  bored  by  the  caresses 
of  women — in  that  resembling  many  a  forward  damsel  of  her 
age.  At  fifteen,  however,  she  took  a  big  step  in  advance — at 
fifteen,  she  had  a  lover  :  Saint-Etienne,  a  captain  of  chevau-Ugers^ 
head  over  ears  in  debt.  A  rascal  too — and  worse,  for  when  he 
found  that  Cardinal  Richelieu  was  interested  in  the  young  lady, 
he  was  quite  ready  to  act  as  go-between.  It  is  to  Voltaire  that 
we  owe  the  tale  of  Ninon's  love-aflair  with  Richelieu — "  he  was 
her  first  lover,  and  she  was  probably  his  last  mistress."  This 
would  seem  to  dispose  of  Saint-Etienne's  claim  to  open  the  long 
list. 

It  is  so  long  as  totally  to  lack  interest.  When  Lenclos  came 
home  in  1641,  to  die,  his  daughter  was  already  "  launched  "  to 


NINON  DE  LENCLOS  97 

such  an  extent  that  she  had  (according  to  that  disgraceful  writer 
of  historiettes,  Tallemant  des  Rdaux)  "  three  classes  of  adorers : 
the  'payers/  whom  she  cared  nothing  for  and  only  made  use 
of  till  she  could  do  without  them  ;  the  '  martyrs/  and  the 
'  favourites.' "...  Lenclos  was  satisfied  with  the  effect  of  his 
early  training,  and  on  his  death-bed  he  enforced  it  further.  "  Be 
scrupulous/*  he  said,  "  only  in  the  choice  of  your  pleasures — never 
mind  about  the  number."  To  the  fastidious  mind,  this  counsel  has 
an  Hibernian  air — quantity  and  quality  being  the  irreconcilable 
rivals  they  are  ;  but  Ninon's  faithful  chroniclers  duly  declare  that 
she  followed  her  father's  advice  to  the  letter.  It  was  after  reflecting 
on  these  edifying  last  words  that  she  came  to  her  famous  decision 
to  make  herself  a  man.  Without  prejudice  in  favour  of  men  or 
women,  we  may  hint  that  perhaps  Ninon  did  not  clearly  perceive 
the  finer  attributes  of  either.  But  the  tribute  to  male  vanity 
offered  by  her  career  has  never  been  exceeded :  we  must  not 
blame  the  dazzled  gentlemen. 


At  twenty-three,  she  was  entirely  her  own  mistress :  both  her 
father  and  mother  were  dead.  Her  fortune  was  small,  but  she 
managed  it  so  well  that  she  soon  had  a  comfortable  yearly  income, 
of  which  she  always  kept  back  a  part  so  as  to  be  able  to  help 
friends  in  distress.  "  Her  love  of  liberty  forbade  her  to  think  of 
marriage."  .  .  .  And  thus— femme  /manciple,  if  ever  there  was 
one! — Mademoiselle  Anne,  diU  Ninon,  de  Lenclos  began  her 
independent  career. 

"  She  was  never  a  beauty,"  blurts  out  Tallemant — and  we  gasp. 
Is  not  her  name  the  very  synonym  for  beauty }  has  it  not  been 
attached  to  every  tool  of  factitious  loveliness — is  there  not  Ninon 
Bloom,  Ninon  Cream,  Ninon  Powder !  But  another  writer  con- 
firms Tallemant,  and  this  is  Somaize,  the  author  of  the  Diction- 
naire  des  Pricieuses^  who  immortalised  her  therein  as  Nigdalie, 
or  Ligdonise — a  choice  of  evils  in  soubriquets.  "  Her  mind  was 
more  attractive  than  her  face,"  he  says.  The  truth  is,  of  course, 
that  she  had  fascination — that  self-made  beauty,  as  it  were, 
which  lives  for  ever,  as  her  legend  lives,  which  goes  beyond 
mere  facial  loveliness,  even  when  they  go  together.      A  frank, 

H 


98  NINON   DE  LENCLOS 

tender,  touching  face,  an  arresting  voice,  eyes  wherein  "  la 
dkence  et  la  volupU  se  disputaient  I' empire  "  ;  a  dazzling  skin,  a 
faultless  figure,  grace  in  every  movement.  ...  It  seems  enough  ! 
But  it  is  true  that  the  pictures  of  her  give  no  impression  of 
loveliness.  How  very  little,  if  Ninon  lacked  it,  would  it  seem 
to  signify.  "We  know,"  says  Somaize,  "that  she  had  enough 
good  looks  to  inspire  love." 

The  word  is  written !  Love — the  feeling  she  so  deeply 
disdained.  "  Do  you  know  why  love  is  dangerous  ?  Because 
people  will  persist  in  thinking  it  sublime  " — so  she  is  fabled  to 
have  written  to  the  young  Marquis  de  Sdvign^,  whose  father  had 
also  been  her  lover.  These  letters  are  probably  apocryphal,  but 
in  their  perpetual  gibing  at  any  serious  view  of  love  they  reflect 
the  core  of  her  philosophy.  She  considered  it  a  transitory  state, 
founded  on  an  illusion  of  the  senses.  "  Experience  teaches  us 
that  all  the  dig"  words  are  the  merest  illusions."  "  Love  is  a 
passion,  not  a  virtue :  and  a  passion  does  not  turn  into  a  virtue 
because  it  happens  to  last — it  merely  becomes  a  longer  passion." 
"  Love  is  powerful  only  because  we  are  feeble."  "  It  is  almost 
always  the  work  of  vanity — scarcely  ever  of  a  so-called  invincible 
sympathy."  "  Flight,  time,  absence :  these  are  remedies  which  no 
passion  has  ever  been  known  to  resist."  In  such  a  strain,  Ninon 
could  talk  or  write  for  ever.  Illusion :  she  was  apparently 
content  with  that  illusive  word,  which  begs  every  question  it 
touches,  since  Reality  is  its  faithful  double.  She  had  plenty  of 
experience,  at  any  rate,  of  the  "  transitory  state." 

"  Tendre  et  friponne  tour  h  tour, 
Ninon  eut  trop  d'amants  pour  connaitre  I'amour." 

So  some  one  wrote  for  her  epitaph.  .  .  .  Let  us  choose  one  or  two 
incidents  from  the  interminable  list.  When  she  was  twenty-eight, 
she  had  three  lovers  in  one  year,  among  them  a  Cardinal  and  a 
Huguenot.  Then  came  the  elder  Marquis  de  S6vign^,  with  whom 
her  affair  lasted  three  months.  She  was  elated  by  her  constancy, 
and  wrote  to  the  next  one :  "  I  think  I  may  love  you  for  three 
months,  and  that's  an  eternity  for  me."  She  liked  to  choose  for 
herself,  and  she  specially  liked  to  be  the  first  to  break  off,  so 
when   one    D'Andelot    picked    up    the   handkerchief,    behaved 


NINON  dp:  lenclos 

FKOM    A    MINIATURE   IN    THE   SOUTH    KENSINGTON   MUSEUM 


NINON  DE  LENCLOS  99 

gallantly  for  a  while,  and  then  had  the  effrontery  to  disappear, 
she  was  very  angry  and  complained  of  it  to  a  friend,  who  brought 
back  the  temerarious  fugitive  to  her  feet.  A  curious  creature 
called  Miossens  came  next — clever,  but  so  affected  and  involved 
in  speech  that  a  lady  who  had  resisted  him  for  so  long  that  he 
had  retired  in  despair,  said  when  she  heard  of  his  defection : 
"  What  a  pity !  I  was  just  beginning  to  understand  him."  To 
Miossens  succeeded  the  great  Conde — a  god  in  war,  but  a  bad 
lover.  No  doubt  he  inspired  her  to  her  famous  maxim :  "  It 
requires  infinitely  more  genius  to  make  love  than  to  command 
armies."  Fortunately  for  Condi's  feelings,  Ninon  fell  danger- 
ously ill,  which  cut  short  their  affair  \^ithout  wounding  explana- 
tions. "  She  convalesced  in  the  company  of  the  Chevalier  de 
Jarzay."  The  Due  de  Navailles,  next  on  the  list,  was  rather  a 
failure.  She  saw  him  one  day  when  she  was  driving,  and  sent  to 
say  she  would  like  to  speak  to  him.  He  hurried  up,  and  she 
swept  him  off  in  her  carriage  to  supper.  He  was  then  conducted 
to  a  charming  guest-chamber  by  the  hostess  herself.  She  retired, 
and,  over-excited  perhaps  by  the  intoxicating  adventure,  Navailles 
fell  asleep  as  soon  as  his  head  touched  the  pillow.  Poor  man ! 
he  never  knew  that  his  hostess  had  returned,  until  his  door  was 
opened  noisily  next  morning  and  she  appeared,  dressed  in  his 
clothes.  "  Ah,  sir  !  "  he  cried,  still  half-asleep,  "  I  am  a  man  of 
honour,  I  will  give  you  satisfaction."  .  .  .  One  conjectures  that 
Navailles  left  that  day. 

Fourreau  and  Moreau,  also  on  the  list,  make  an  amusing  couple. 
They  were  "  payers."  Fourreau  was  undeviating  in  his  attention 
to  duty:  ^^  Fourreau  payeraP  Moreau  was  less  dependable.  He 
paid  sometimes,  but  one  could  not  always  be  certain  :  Fourreau 
then  stepped  in.  This  does  not  chime  with  the  disinterestedness 
.which  some  writers  claim  for  her — "  she  never  had  an  interested 
love-affair  "  ;  but  it  does  confirm  her  own  declaration  to  Fonte- 
nelle  in  later  years  :  "  You  know  what  I  have  done  with  my  body. 
Well,  I  could  have  sold  my  soul  still  more  profitably — the  Jesuits 
and  the  Jansenists  both  wanted  it."  Yet  she  would  rarely  accept 
any  present  from  her  lovers :  "  a  man  had  to  be  very  adroit,  or 
she  had  to  be  very  much  in  love,  to  make  her  take  a  present  of 
any  kind."     She  was  quite  honest,  too,  in  her  dealings  with  her 


100  NINON   DE   LENCLOS 

adorers.  When  she  was  tired  of  them,  she  said  so ;  but  while 
her  fancy  lasted,  "  no  one  saw  her  but  the  favoured  man — except 
at  supper,  where  people  went  for  conversation."  Sceptical  old 
Des  Yveteaux — le  dernier  homme^  so  called  because  he  lived  at 
the  end  of  the  Faubourg  Saint- Germain — was  a  particular 
favourite.  He  died  to  the  music  of  a  saraband,  "  so  that  my 
soul  may  go  happily,"  and  clasped  in  his  rigid  fingers  they  found 
a  yellow  ribbon  which  she  had  given  him.  .  .  .  Des  Yveteaux 
makes  a  definite  impression  :  one  would  like  to  have  known  him. 
Charleval,  a  poet,  was  one  of  the  "  martyrs."  "  The  Muses,"  said 
Scarron,  brilliant  crippled  host  of  the  Hotel  for  the  Impecunious, 
"  evidently  fed  Charleval  on  blancmange  and  chicken-broth." 
He  sighed  in  vain,  and  resigned  himself  at  last  to  friendship. 

When  Ninon  was  thirty-two,  she  began  an  affair  with  the 
Marquis  de  Villarceaux,  which  created  consternation  among  her 
little  band,  for  it  lasted  three  years.  She  actually  left  Paris  for 
his  sake,  and  went  to  live  with  him  near  Yvetot.  Saint-Evre- 
mond  was  appalled.  He  wrote  her  a  long  rhymed  letter,  repre- 
senting the  futility  of  this  kind  of  thing. 

"  Car  s*attacher  toujours  au  m^me  bien, 
C'est  poss^der  et  ne  sentir  plus  rien. 
Ainsi,  Philis,  il  faut  etre  inconstante  .  .  . 
Etre  inconstante  aussi  longtemps  qu'on  peut, 
Car  un  temps  vient  que  ne  I'est  pas  qui  veut." 

She  was  frightened  ;  she  came  back — but  Villarceaux  came  back 
too,  and  set  up  house  opposite  her  dwelling.  He  proved  trouble- 
some— used  to  watch  her  windows,  and  once,  seeing  them  lit  up 
very  late,  sent  to  ask  if  she  was  ill.  They  told  him  no.  "  Then 
she  must  be  writing  to  a  lover,"  he  decided,  and  went  across  to 
see  ;  but  so  unstrung  was  he  at  the  thought  that  he  took  up, 
instead  of  his  hat,  a  silver  ewer,  crammed  it  on  his  head,  and  had 
great  difficulty  in  extricating  himself.  ...  He  lived,  poor  fellow  ! 
in  such  a  distracting  tide  of  jealousy  that  at  last  he  fell  ill.  Ninon, 
hearing  this  one  morning  as  she  was  having  her  beautiful  hair 
dressed,  was  remorseful :  she  cut  off  one  side  of  the  rich  chevelure 
and  sent  it  to  him,  to  show  that  she  was  leading  and  would  lead 
for  some  time  a  retired  life.     He  recognized  all  the  passion  there 


NINON   DE  LENCLOS  101 

was  in  this  tribute,  and  got  well  at  once.     "  She  went  to  him,  and 
stayed  a  week." 

While  she  had  been  in  retreat  with  Villarceaux,  Scarron  had 
got  married.  His  bride  was  Frangoise  d'Aubigne,  who  after- 
wards became  the  portentous  Madame  de  Maintenon.  She  was 
then  seventeen — an  age  at  which  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  that 
incarnation  of  Forty-Five.  Ninon  thought  her  clever,  but  "  too 
gauche  for  a  love-affair."  Villarceaux  (forgetting  the  ravished 
hair)  did  not  agree  in  this.  He  tried,  at  any  rate.  Our  further 
information  comes  from  Ninon  herself,  in  a  letter  to  Saint-Evre- 
mond,  who  wrote  from  England  to  ask  if  the  gossip  was  true. 
"  All  I  know,"  wrote  Ninon  airily, "  is  that  I  have  often  lent  them 
my  yellow  room."  She  was  certainly  consistent :  her  disdain  for 
the  "  transitory  state  "  pierces  plainly  through  this  incident,  for 
she  became  the  intimate  friend  of  Madame  Scarron.  "They 
slept  together  for  several  months  in  succession,  which  was  then 
the  fashion  in  friendship ;  but  what  was  less  general  was  the  fact 
that  they  both  had  the  same  lover  and  did  not  quarrel  over  it." 
Something  too  much  of  philosophy  in  this,  perhaps ;  the  lesser 
intellects  sigh  for  a  more  human  note — especially  as  Villarceaux 
was  the  father  of  a  son,  who  was  afterwards  legitimised  as  the 
Chevalier  de  la  Boissiere.     He  became  an  impassioned  amateur 

I  of  music,  and  used  to  give  exquisite  chamber-concerts,  thus  keep- 
ng  alive  one  tradition  of  his  many-sided  mother. 
As  we  are  speaking  of  sons,  we  shall  touch  briefly  here  on 
he  one  horror  which  invaded  Ninon's  sybarite  existence.  In 
[672  (when  she  was  over  fifty)  a  young  man,  known  as  the 
Chevalier  de  Villars,  began  to  attend  her  house,  and  was  received 
here  as  a  distant  relation.  One  day,  he  caught  from  Ninon's 
eyes  an  unexpected  gleam  of  tenderness.  It  lit  the  spark  ;  he 
fell  in  love,  tried  to  hide  his  passion — but  at  last  it  broke  bounds. 
And  she  was  cruel — she  who  was  so  seldom  cruel ! — and  he  had 
caught  that  tender  look.  ...  He  grew  desperate.  Ninon  knew 
not  what  to  do.  At  last  she  went  to  the  Chevalier  de  Jarzay.* 
"  Let  me  tell  him  who  he  is ! "  Jarzay,  overwhelmed,  instantly 
ave  permission.     In  a  terrible  scene,  she  told  the  young  man 

*  An  anonymous  writer  of  1786  affirms  this  to  have  been  Lord  Jersey 
"  of  England,"  whose  family-name  is  Villiers. 


if 


102  NINON   DE   LENCLOS 

the  truth :  "  You  are  my  son."     He  rushed  out  and  shot  himself 
in  the  thicket  behind  her  house. 


In  165 1,  she  had  some  sh'ght  annoyance  from  the  clergy.  A 
dinner-party  during  Passion- Week,  in  the  Rue  des  Saints-P^res, 
made  almost  as  great  a  scandal  as  one  given  by  an  equally  impious 
host,  one  Desbarreaux,  on  a  Good  Friday.  Desbarreaux'  feast 
was  interrupted  by  a  terrific  thunderstorm  just  as  a  delicious 
bacon-omelette  was  being  served.  He  went  to  the  window, 
opened  it,  and  threw  out  the  dish,  saying  with  a  yawn :  "  Good 
Heavens !  what  a  fuss  about  an  omelette  ! "  Ninon's  guests  fell 
far  short  of  this  brilliancy.  They  merely  flung  out  a  chicken- 
bone — which  hit  a  passing  priest  on  the  head.  He  was  insulted 
and  horrified :  "  Bones  in  Lent — there  should  be  none  to  throw 
about,"  and  went  to  the  authorities  with  his  complaint.  Ninon 
barely  escaped  a  forced  retirement  to  a  convent. 

But  some  years  afterwards  the  clergy  attacked  her  again,  and 
they  were  supported  this  time  by  the  Marechale  de  Grammont, 
whose  husband  said  of  her  that  she  could  give  Beelzebub  fifteen 
points  and  a  bisque.  Ninon  was  conveyed  to  the  Madelonnettes, 
which  was  instantly  besieged  by  her  lovers,  headed  by  Boisrobert 
— of  whom  it  was  reported  that  "  his  chasuble  was  made  of  one 
of  her  petticoats."  The  scandal  was  enormous,  and  the  lady  was 
transferred  to  Lagny,  whither  the  troop  followed  her  and  stayed 
at  an  hotel  near  by.  What  might  have  happened  if  Queen 
Christina  of  Sweden  had  not  been  in  France  just  then,  one  knows 
not.  That  eccentric  and  delightful  person  went  to  see  "  the 
illustrious  Ninon,"  and  was  so  enchanted  with  her  that  she 
regained  her  her  liberty.  Christina  then  proposed  to  carry  her 
off  to  Sweden,  but  Ninon  refused :  "  she  was  too  fond  of  her 
freedom."  The  Queen  was  not  offended ;  she  went  off  saying 
that  she  had  found  no  lady  in  France  to  be  compared  with  her. 
It  was  to  Christina  that  Ninon  made  her  renowned  bon-mot  upon 
the  Precieuses,  that  "  they  were  the  Jansenists  of  Love." 


"  A  love-affair,"  said  this  clear-sighted  lady,  "  is,  of  all  dramas. 


NINON  DE  LENCLOS  103 

that  in  which  the  entr'actes  are  longest,  and  the  acts  shortest : 
how  can  these  intervals  be  filled  up,  except  by  one's  talents  ? " 
She  therefore  advised  all  women  to  cultivate  their  talents. 
Better  advice  has  never  been  given,  and  she  added  to  it  the 
weight  of  her  own  dazzling  success.  Her  delightful  little  house 
in  the  Rue  des  Tournelles — Number  Twenty-Eight — where  she 
began  to  live  when  she  was  forty-seven,  was  filled  with  the  flower 
of  the  Parisian  world.  "The  most  virtuous  mothers  were  anxious 
for  their  sons  to  go  there,  for  it  was  regarded  as  the  centre  of 
good  society."  Madame  de  Sevign6,  whose  husband  and  son  had 
successively  come  under  Ninon's  spell,  wrote  of  her  to  her 
daughter :  "  Qu'elle  est  dedaigneuse,  cette  Ninon  !  ,  .  .  She  has 
given  your  brother  up — though  he  still  goes  there  every  day, 
mais  c'est  un  ami  .  .  .  He  was  unhappy  when  she  loved  him  ; 
now  he  is  in  despair  because  she  has  ceased  to  do  so.  She  says 
that  he  is  beneath  definition  ;  and  certainly  he  is  stupid,  even 
about  himself,  to  say  nothing  of  other  people."  Despite  this 
unmotherly  candour,  the  caustic  lady  evidently  desired  for 
Charles  the  friendship  which  "  that  disdainful  Ninon  "  was  now 
satisfied  to  accord  him — for  de  Sevigne,  amazing  to  relate,  had 
been  the  loved,  and  not  the  lover !  But  when  she  gave  him  up 
as  hopeless,  Ninon  scarified  him  with  a  phrase:  "Your  heart 
is  like  a  gourd's  heart,  soaked  in  snow."  No  wonder  the  un- 
happy Charles  was  in  despair :  who  could  know  tranquillity  of 
mind  with  such  a  "  definition  "  to  live  down ! 

The  little  house  had  a  pretty  garden ;  it  was  decorated  by 
Mignard,  Lafosse,  and  Lebrun ;  on  the  ground-floor  there 
was  a  delightful  boudoir,  peopled  by  little  Loves ;  on  the  stair- 
case, a  fine  medallion  of  Louis  XIV. ;  the  salon  had  a  mag- 
nificent ceiling  representing  Le  Roi-Soleil  as  Apollo.  And 
when  these  had  been  admired,  there  was  the  exquisite  lute- 
playing  of  the  hostess  to  enjoy — if  one  remembered  to  ask  for  it. 
But  one  often  forgot,  for  "  her  conversation  was  more  exquisite 
still."  Perhaps  that  was  why,  when  one  did  remember,  Ninon 
rather  put  one  off:  no  doubt  she  liked  talking  best.  Music 
sometimes  hushes  more  delightful  things ;  and  if  she  was  at  her 
best,  if  the  supper  had  been  brilliant,  if  she  had  been  intoxicated 
with  talking — " ivre  dh  la  soupe'^^  as  they  said  of  her — it  is  easy 


104  NINON  DE  LENCLOS 

to  believe  that  the  request  for  her  lute  might  disconcert,  even 
irritate  her.  But  when  she  did  play,  "  one  would  have  thought 
she  had  never  done  anything  else  all  her  life."  The  expression 
was  wonderful — "  all  her  mind  and  all  her  soul." 

She  cared  deeply  for  music :  it  was  an  inherited  taste,  and 
one,  moreover,  suited  to  her  dreamy  temperament.  Cest  unefilie 
fort  reveuse  et  qui  se  laisse  aller  d  la  melancolie^  says  Somaize. 
But  it  was  not  only  music.  Beauty  impressed  her  wherever  she 
found  it,  and  she  was  catholic  in  her  supreme  good  taste :  the 
art  of  all  ages  and  all  countries  gave  her  pleasure.  She  did  not 
study,  though.  She  could  not  take  the  trouble  :  "  she  never 
had  learnt  anything  she  knew" — or  rather  she  had  learnt  and 
forgotten,  and  thus  when  vaguely  it  recurred  to  her,  "  she  gave 
it  such  a  happy  turn  that  it  seemed  quite  a  new  thing."  She 
never  quoted.  That  of  all  conversational  tricks  she  detested  most, 
and  when  Mignard,  the  renowned  portrait-painter,  deplored  his 
daughter's  terribly  defective  memory,  Ninon  consoled  him  with, 
"  What  a  blessing  for  you !  She'll  never  be  able  to  quote." 
Her  own  talk  was  natural  always,  witty  often  ;  literature  and  art 
were  her  favourite  topics — Moli^re  used  to  consult  her,  "  for  she 
has  the  keenest  sense  of  the  absurd  of  any  one  I  know  " ;  and 
she  was,  besides,  a  brilliant  mimic. 

And  so  there  was  everything  and  everyone  at  Rue  des 
Tournelles.  Charleval,  the  haggard  poet,  could  write  piquant 
couplets  like  these : 

"  Je  ne  suis  plus  oiseau  des  champs, 
Mais  de  ces  oiseaux  des  Tournelles' 
Qui  parlent  d'amour  en  tous  temps 
Et  qui  plaignent  les  tourterelles 
De  ne  se  baiser  qu'au  printemps." 

But  Moli^re  and  Boileau,  too,  could  compose  at  her  supper- 
table  the  macaronic  Latin  of  Le  Malade  Imaginaire ;  La  Roche- 
foucauld could  make  maxims :  "  The  woman's  hell  is  old 
age "...  Did  this  alarm  her }  for  we  find  Saint-Evremond 
writing :  "  Your  life,  my  very  dear  lady,  has  been  too  illustrious 
to  lose  any  of  its  glory  at  the  end.  Don't  be  afraid  of  Roche- 
foucauld's   *  hell ' :    it's    a    made-up    one — he    just    wanted    to 


I 


NINON   DE   LENCLOS  105 


perpetrate  a  maxim.  You  take  my  advice  and  say  *  Love ' 
boldly  all  the  time,  and  never  let  the  words  '  Old  Age '  soil  your 
lips." 

That  was  another  of  her  talents — letter- writing.  Her  letters 
were  little  masterpieces :  Madame  du  Deffand  said  they  con- 
firmed her  in  an  opinion  she  had  always  secretly  held — that  she 
herself  was  not  a  wit  at  all.  They  were  not  only  witty,  they 
were  natural ;  and  Saint-Evrdmond  got  the  best  of  them.  He 
was  her  lifelong  friend :  she  said  once,  "  He  and  I  will  write  the 
world's  epitaph."  This  was  the  Saint-Evremond  who  was 
Hortense  Mancini's  adorer.  He  was  exiled  to  England — or 
rather,  fled  there  to  escape  arrest — by  Louis  XIV. ;  Charles  H., 
ever  appreciative  (like  all  fine  wits)  of  his  rivals  in  bel-esprit, 
admired  him  and  gave  him  a  pension  of  ;£"300.  He  never 
returned  to  France.  When  permission  was  given,  he  proclaimed 
himself  too  old,  but  the  truth  was  that  he  could  not  tear  himself 
away  from  Hortense  Mancini.  He  is  an  enchanting  writer,  a 
radiant  Hedonist,  whether  he  gives  advice  or  comments  on  the 
age:— 

** Avoties  toutes  vos  passions  potir  /aire  valoir  toiites  vos 
vertus!^  "Sinning  is  simply  stupid — it  offends  good  taste  as 
much  as  it  offends  religion.  A  man  must  be  a  very  awkward 
sort  of  rascal  to  get  into  trouble  nowadays  in  France."  Or  he 
describes  Ninon's  life  to  her,  always  a  successful  flattery  :  "  You 
have  been  loved  by  the  best  fellows  in  the  world,  and  you  have 
loved  them  just  long  enough  to  leave  nothing  in  the  way  of 
passion  untasted,  and  so  wisely  as  to  avoid  any  of  the  lassitudes 
of  a  waning  love.  None  of  your  sex  has  ever  before  been  so 
fortunate ;  there  are  few  princesses  in  the  world  who  would  not 
envy  you — probably  many  a  saint  in  a  convent  would  be  glad  to 
exchange  her  tranquillity  of  mind  for  your  delightful  anxieties. 
The  only  torments  you  have  known  are  those  of  love — and  who 
knows  better  than  you  that  they  are  the  best  part  of  it ! "  He 
sings  her  praises  as  an  amotirense,  indeed,  until  one  wearies  of 
the  refrain  :  "  You  were  born  to  love  all  your  life.  Lovers  and 
gamblers  have  a  sort  of  resemblance  in  that  way :  Qui  a  aimi^ 
aimera"  "  I  always  knew  by  your  eyes  when  you  had  made  a 
new  conquest :   they  would  sparkle  a  little  more  than  usual," — 


106  NINON  DE  LENCLOS 

crowning  all  by  this  delightful  couplet,  tucked  in  at  the  end  of  a 
letter— 

"  L'indulgente  et  sage  Nature 
A  form^  Tame  de  Ninon, 
De  la  voluptd  d'Epicure, 
Et  de  la  vertu  de  Caton." 

But  then,  he  was  never  her  lover ! 

It  was  for  friendship  that  Ninon  kept  all  her  confidence  and 
esteem.  That  she  did  respect,  calling  it  "a  noble,  liberal,  and 
elevated  passion."  Small  wonder — for  no  woman  ever  had  such 
adoring  friends  :  it  was  a  veritable  cult.  The  things  they  said,  the 
things  they  wrote.  ..."  All  that  she  thought  was  well-thought ; 
all  that  she  said,  well-said  ;  all  that  she  did,  well-done."  A  man 
who  met  her  in  the  latter  part  of  her  life  said  that  "  he  wondered 
what  he  had  done  all  the  time  he  had  not  known  her."  "  She 
suited  everybody's  taste  without  altering  herself.  When  one  has  a 
mind  like  hers,  one  belongs  to  all  time — one  is  always  sure  of 
pleasing."  But  Saint-Evremond,  as  was  his  habit,  said  the  thing 
— incomparably.  "  You  are  of  all  countries — as  much  honoured 
in  London  as  in  Paris.  You  are  of  all  times — for  when  I  bring 
your  name  forward  to  glorify  my  own,  I  find  the  young  men 
quoting  you  to  prove  the  superiority  of  theirs.  So  there  you 
are,  you  see — mistress  of  the  present  and  the  past." 

She  was  seventy-nine  when  she  received  that  letter ! 

It  was  her  friends  who  knew  the  real  Ninon — her  men-friends. 
Women  we  confess  we  do  not  feel  so  sure  about :  it  is  admitted 
by  the  gentlemen  that  she  was  jealous  of  other  women.  "  This  was 
her  only  foible,"  they  say,  apparently  unconscious  of  its  fatal 
discrepancy  with  that  vaunted  metamorphosis  of  hers.  Christina 
of  Sweden,  Lady  Sandwich,  Madame  de  Maintenon  (who,  in  the 
great  days,  preferred  not  to  talk  of  her,  but  dared  not  disavow 
her  friendship)  * — these  are  the  only  women  of  whom  we  find  any 
definite  mention,  and  two  of  them  were  lion-hunters.  Ninon 
stands  confessed  a  man's  woman — delightful  but  enigmatic  title, 
surely  at  some  variance,  once  more,  with  the  Grand  Decision  ! 
It  may  not  have  been  entirely  her  fault.  "//  7  a  tant  de 
femmelettes"  she  would  sigh,  and  few  indeed  at  that  time  were 

*  "  They  met  but  seldom — only  once  or  twice,  and  quite  secretly." 


NINON  DE  LENCLOS  107 

the  women  who  could  hear  her.  Madame  du  Deffand,  perhaps 
— but  she,  like  Ninon,  was  a  jealous  Queen  of  the  Drawing-room  : 
they  did  not  meet. 

Ninon  gave  her  own  sex  such  things  as  this  to  digest :  "  I 
tell  you,  and  I  speak  for  all  women,  that  there  are  moments  when 
they  would  rather  be  hrtisquies  than  treated  with  too  much 
respect.  Men  lose  more  conquests  by  their  own  awkwardness 
than  by  any  virtue  in  the  woman." 

"  Men  often  say  that  they  want  the  *  essential  qualities '  in  a 
love-affair.     How  miserable  they  would  be  if  they  got  them  !  " 

"  We  never  talk  of  '  Fate '  except  when  we've  made  a  bad 
choice.  How  arrogant  we  are,  to  be  sure !  We  assign  to  Nature 
all  the  blame  for  a  misplaced  passion,  and  do  our  own  judgment 
all  the  honour  of  a  successful  one." 

"  A  woman's  virtue  is  only  for  show." 

"  A  woman's  resistance  is  no  proof  of  her  virtue ;  it  is  much 
more  likely  to  be  a  proof  of  her  experience.  If  we  spoke 
sincerely,  we  should  have  to  confess  that  our  first  impulse  is  to 
yield — we  only  resist  on  reflection." 

These  were  hard  sayings — or  at  any  rate  sayings  that  most 
women  preferred  to  bandy  among  themselves.  To  think  that 
men  were  being  regaled  with  such  diverting  confessions  at  the 
Rue  des  Tournelles  was  not  pleasant  for  those  ladies  who 
cherished  that  virtue  which  was  "only  for  show,"  and  it  was 
annoying  for  those  who  had  tardily  yielded.  .  .  .  Honour 
amongst  thieves,  after  all ! 

And  then,  that  grand  weapon  for  domination — the  lover's 
quarrel.  Hear  her  view — her  exhilarating,  her  delightful  view 
of  that !  "  I  sometimes  took  it  into  my  head  to  notice  what  we 
were  saying,  and  the  way  we  were  saying  it.  Directly  I  did  so, 
I  became  possessed  with  an  insane  desire  to  burst  out  laughing. 
I  couldn't  resist  it ;  I  shook  with  laughter — the  indecency  of  it ! 
You  can  guess  how  doubly  solemn  he  immediately  became  !  "  .  .  . 
No,  no :  these  treacheries  cannot  be  permitted,  even  though  we 
too  shake  with  laughter  as  we  transcribe. 

On  ne  hadine  pas  avec  t amour  f  Ninon  did — if  we  admit 
that  she  ever  knew  it — and  t amour  was  quite  submissive.  The 
story  of  the  admirer  whom  she  kept  waiting  to  a  certain  day, 


108  NINON  DE  LENCLOS 

"  because  it  was  her  eightieth  birthday,  and  she  wanted  to  boast 
of  having  a  new  lover  on  it,"  may  be  dismissed  as  apocryphaL 
Her  old  age  was  decorous — she  declared  that  if  any  one  had 
prophesied  such  a  life  to  her  at  one  time,  she  would  have  hanged 
herself.  Voltaire  saw  her  in  these  last  years.  "  I  can  testify," 
he  wrote,  "  that  Mile.  Lenclos  had  all  the  ugliest  signs  of  old  age 
in  her  face,  and  her  mind  was  that  of  an  ascetic  philosopher."  He 
looked  with  blind  eyes  ;  he  heard,  one  thinks  (reading  her  last 
letters  to  Saint-Evremond),  with  deaf  ears.  She  may  have  been 
grave,  even  respectable,  but  what  did  the  Abb^  Gedoyn  say  of 
her  eyes  ^  "  One  can  read  in  them,  even  at  eighty-five,  the  whole 
history  of  her  life."  Another  Ahh6 — Chaulieu — said  more  ex- 
quisitely the  same  thing:  "Cupid  had  retreated  into  the  little 
wrinkles  round  her  eyes." 

She  had  wrinkles,  then  ?  She  was  wise  enough  to  permit 
them.  "  Les  rides  sont  les  marques  de  la  sagesse!^  she  said — with 
a  thread  of  irony  perhaps.  Away,  then,  with  Ninon  Cream, 
Bloom,  Powder !  We  are  dealing  with  a  great  woman  of  the 
world.  .  .  .  There  are  two  sayings  for  the  very  end.  One, 
infinitely  pathetic :  "  Je  suis  lasse  de  faire  totijours  les  mimes 
choses^  The  other,  a  quatrain  she  made  shortly  before  she  died 
is  more  characteristic  of  her  gallant  Hedonism  : — 

"  Qu'un  vain  espoir  ne  vienne  point  s'offrir, 
Qui  puisse  dbranler  mon  courage  j 
Je  suis  en  dge  de  mourir — 
Que  ferais-je  ici  davantage  .'*  " 

What   indeed  }     She  had  done  just  what  she  liked — and   had 
never  been  afraid. 

"  Say  with  me  a  little  De  Profundis  for  her,"  wrote  Voltaire. 
We  say  it — wondering  what  she  would  have  thought  of  it !  .  .  . 
Had  she  any  speculations  about  that  Other  Future  1  Yes.  "  If 
one  could  think  that  one  would  be  able  to  talk  with  all  one's 
friends  there — it  would  be  sweet."  Friendship  and  talking — the 
two  real  passions  of  her  life !  No  mention  of  the  "  transitory 
state." 


SOPHIE  ARNOULD 

I 740-1 802 

SOPHIE  ARNOULD,  as  she  stepped  on  the  stage  of  the 
Opera  at  her  dib{lt,  sang  in  her  pathetic  voice  the 
syllables,  Charmant  Amour.  The  first  words  which  they 
utter  as  professionals  are  the  subject  of  deep  superstition  with 
actors ;  and  she,  whose  mind  was  so  prehensile,  did  not  fail  to 
observe  the  omen  of  her  own  beginning.  "  Ca  porte  bonheurl' 
she  said — and  smiled  as  she  remembered,  too,  that  she  was  born 
upon  St.  Valentine's  Day.  Very  assuredly  the  omens  did  not  lie ! 
"  One  of  those  women  who,  in  life,  are  the  scandal  of  an  age — 
and  in  death,  its  delight,"  she  was  lovely,  gifted,  witty,  and  utterly 
disreputable ;  sharp-tongued  yet  not  soft-hearted,  foul-mouthed 
and  assuredly  not  fair-souled.  The  only  way  to  win  her  heart 
was  to  be  witty  or  eccentric.  There  was  a  funny  side  to  every- 
thing. If  there  was  a  serious  side — and  she  impatiently  supposed 
there  was — it  might  go  hang  for  all  she  cared. 

It  was  the  Valentine's  Day  of  1740  which  saw  the  birth  of 
Magdeleine-Sophie  Arnould  in  Paris.  Notice  the  first  name : 
it,  like  her  birthday  and  her  opening  song,  was  prophetic.  She 
did  not  use  it,  but  she  never  forgot  that  it  was  hers,  and  she 
celebrated  htr  jotir  defete  on  St.  Magdalen's  day. 

Her  father  was  a  business-man  in  easy  circumstances,  who 
had  made  his  comfortable  fortune  and  was  serenely  satisfied  with 
a  serene  little  success  :  he  would  smile  as  he  heard  of  "  the 
climbers" — the  cits  like  himself  who  were  getting  ennobled. 
"  What  have  we  to  be  ashamed  of } "  he  would  say.  "  We're  all 
right  as  we  are."  He  had  to  say  that  very  often,  for  Madame 
Arnould  kicked  against  the  cosy  pricks.  She  came  from  Blois — 
"  that  pretty  little  town,  still  redolent  of  Catherine  de  M6dicis  and 

109 


110  SOPHIE   ARNOULD 

the  Court,"  and  once  established  as  a  Parisian,  she  set  her  cap  at 
society.  "  Her  mind  had  quick  ears " — in  the  inimitable  Gon- 
court  phrase — "and  she  kept  quiet  and  listened  hard,"  soon 
turning  into  a  delightful  woman  of  the  world.  She  was  interested 
in  ideas,  she  loved  to  talk  ;  better  still,  she  loved  to  listen.  The 
talkers,  the  thinkers,  discovered  her:  Voltaire  was  a  friend, 
Fontenelle  brought  her  the  manuscript  of  one  of  Corneille's 
tragedies,  Diderot  and  D'Alembert  dined  with  her.  .  .  .  Honest 
Arnould,  bored  with  too  much  brilliancy,  would  go  off  to  bed  ; 
and  Madame  would  sit  till  all  hours  talking,  arguing — "  les  plus 
belles  querelles  de  la  terre  sur  Dieu  et  le  monde^ 

Sophie,  the  little  lovely  spoilt  baby,  youngest  of  five,  learnt 
her  early  lessons  without  knowing  she  was  learning  them.  At 
four,  she  could  read ;  at  seven,  write  better  than  she  ever  did 
afterwards !  Seven  found  her  also  able  to  read  music  at  sight. 
And  the  prettiest,  gayest  little  creature,  exquisitely,  if  a  little  too 
gorgeously,  dressed  by  the  adoring  mother — silk  frocks,  necklaces, 
flowers  in  her  hair.  .  .  .  "The  darling!"  said  a  Princess,  a 
"  double "  one — the  Princess  of  Modena,  separated  from  her 
husband,  the  Prince  de  Conti,  and  bored,  lonely,  with  nothing  to 
do.  Madame  Arnould's  heart  fluttered.  The  Princess  said  it 
again — finally  said  something  more  :  "  Let  me  have  her  ! "  And 
Madame  Arnould  let  her.  She  took  Sophie  about — "just  like 
a  little  dog,"  and  no  little  dog  was  ever  so  amusing.  At  ten,  the 
lovely  voice  began  to  show  itself ;  after  her  First  Communion, 
the  Princess  had  her  seriously  taught  by  the  first  professors  of 
the  day. 

Then  came  the  coup  de  deslin,  Sophie's  patroness  was  devout ; 
she  frequently  made  retreat  to^^her  favourite  convent.  One 
Easter-Tide,  arriving  at  Panth^mont,  she  found  the  nuns  in  con- 
sternation :  their  show-vocalist  had  fallen  ill — there  was  no  one  to 
sing  Tenebrce  !  Madame  de  Conti  had  an  inspiration  :  her  little 
one  should  sing  Tenebrce.  The  Abbess  gazed  in  astonishment : 
that  girl  of  sixteen  !  But  had  she  not  heard  of  a  wonder-child  at 
Saint-Denis,  who  had  mingled  the  emotions  of  her  First  Com- 
munion with  those  of  a  musical  triumph.  .  ,  .  Was  this  the  same .? 
This  was  the  same.  And  the  Abbess  consented.  On  the 
Wednesday  of  Holy  Week,   Sophie  sang.     At   first   she  was 


SOPHIE  ARNOULD  111 

nervous  ;  then  she  grew  bolder,  the  pathetic  voice  rang  out 
gloriously.  ...  On  Good  Friday,  "  more  than  two  hundred 
carriages  had  to  be  turned  away  from  the  Convent- Church." 
She  sang  the  Miserere  of  Lalande,  in  that  searching,  poignant 
voice  of  hers  :  Paris  had  come,  for  the  first  time,  to  hear  Sophie 
Arnould,  and  Paris  was  soon  in  exquisite  tears — "  that  was  the 
applause  they  gave  her." 


An  odd  beginning  for  a  career  such  as  hers !  But  destiny 
quickly  cast  aside  the  meretricious  effect  of  paradox,  and  seized 
the  appropriate  instrument.  Paris  was  talking,  as  only  Paris 
can,  of  the  "  angel  with  the  celestial  voice " :  Mme.  de  Conti 
made  no  secret  of  her  proud  delight ;  and  the  exultation  of  a 
great  lady  is  soon  known  at  Court.  It  pierced  further  even  than 
"  Court,"  it  reached,  actually,  the  Queen !  Marie-Leczinska,  sick 
unto  death  of  Court-existence,  sad,  but  at  least  sheltered  in  her 
little  world  of  friendship,  and  apprehensive  of  anything  outside 
it— Marie-Leczinska  ventured  to  be  interested.  What  harm 
could  come  of  this }  She  faltered,  hesitated — poor  experienced, 
inexperienced  woman! — then  at  last,  she  mustered  courage. 
Marie-Leczinska  asked  to  see  Sophie ! 

The  Princess  drove  her  out  to  Versailles  in  her  best  carriage. 
They  arrived,  were  shown  to  the  room.  In  came  a  Queen — a 
kind,  smiling  Queen.  How  like  a  fairy-tale  !  "  She  is  pretty," 
said  injudicious  Marie-Leczinska,  who  never  was  anything  but 
injudicious  all  her  life.  And  Sophie  sang  bravely,  and  before  her 
bravura  was  quite  finished,  the  Queen  said  to  the  Princess,  "  I 
want  her.  Will  you  let  me  have  her.  Cousin  t "  and  tapped  her 
laughingly  on  the  shoulder  with  the  Royal  fan !  So  far,  so  good  ; 
but  next  day,  complications.  Another  letter  asking  for  Sophie — 
a  letter  from  the  other  Queen  of  France !  Madame  de  Pompa- 
dour "  wanted  her  "  now.  At  first  it  seemed  but  another  feather 
in  the  little  silken  cap,  and  Madame  de  Conti  was  excited  and 
pleased.  But  etiquette  had  a  word  for  her  ear :  the  poor  lady 
soon  realized  that  she  was  between  the  devil  and  the  deep  sea. 
If  she  should  seem  to  insult  the  Queen  !  If  she  should  actually 
offend  the  Favourite !  .  .  .  What  to  do  t    She  did  the  oddest 


112  SOPHIE   ARNOULD 

thing.  She  sent  for  Madame  Arnould,  and  told  her  that  site 
must  take  her  daughter  to  this  Queen.  And — odder  still ! — 
Madame  Arnould  was  quite  ready.  "  She  loaded  Sophie  with 
jewels,"  and  off  they  set.  The  great  mistress  was  just  crossing 
her  beautiful  salon ^  as  they  entered.  "  How  like  you  are  !  only 
you,  Madame,  have  a  finer  bearing.  Your  daughter  looks  more 
romantic,  more  of  a  dare-devil,  though  "  ;  and  then  she  added 
mysteriously,  "  I  am  going  to  the  King.  Don't  ^  stir  from  this 
room  till  I  come  back.  Don't  let  any  one  see  you."  Perhaps 
Madame  Arnould  had  a  sly  smile  behind  the  Pompadour's  back 
for  this  :  that  foible  of  hers  was  so  well  known,  of  impressing 
everyone  with  the  idea  that  the  King  was  in  and  out  of  her 
house  like  a  tame  cat !  They  ventured  to  look  round,  for  all  the 
mystery — and,  mon  Dieu^  what  pianos !  Two  of  them,  and 
painted.  Boucher  had  painted  them,  and  we  may  be  sure  that 
Madame  Arnould  knew  all  about  Boucher.  And  guitars  and 
harps  and  mandolines,  all  glittering  with  gold.  .  .  .  Daring 
Sophie  was  not  frightened,  however ;  she  began  to  play  upon  one 
of  the  Boucher  pianos.  Suddenly  her  ear  was  gently  pinched. 
It  was  Madame  de  Pompadour  again.  "  Well,  you  are  born  for 
the  stage.  You're  certainly  not  nervous ! "  And  then  again 
Sophie  sang — and  it  was  the  same  success.  "  My  dear  child,  you 
will  make  a  charming  Princess." 

Madame  Arnould  was  vexed  at  this.  "  I  don't  understand 
you,  Madame.  My  daughter  can  never  be  a  real  Princess,  and 
she  is  far  too  well  brought  up  ever  to  become  a  stage  one." 

"  Madame  de  Pompadour  smiled^ 

She  smiled  because  she  knew  her  world.  Some  days  after- 
wards, Madame  Arnould  was  informed  that  the  Queen  had 
appointed  Sophie  to  be  of  her  Private  Music.  That  was  delight- 
ful. But  a  few  more  days  brought  a  lettre-de-cachet  from  the 
King,  by  which  Sophie  was  appointed  to  his  Music,  "  and  parti- 
cularly to  his  Theatre  of  the  Opera."  So  there  was  Pompadour, 
and  one  knew  how  much  Marie-Leczinska  counted  for.  Madame 
Arnould  burst  into  tears.  She  wanted  her  daughter  to  be  happy, 
and  that,  on  the  stage,  she  considered  difficult — at  the  Opera, 
impossible.  She  hurried  to  the  Princess,  and  the  Princess 
hurried  to  Convent  after  Convent,  imploring  the  Abbesses  to 


»      &  •   fc   ^»  •      f, 


•*,    ,     t*-       ».    i*-     ».     *•*  •••••**«.     *'4.'- 


SOPHIE  ARNOULD 

FROM   THE    PICTURE    BY   GREUZE,    IN    THE    WALLACE   COLLECTION,    LONDON 


SOPHIE   ARNOULD  113 

hide  hex  prot^gh  until  something  could  be  arranged.     But  all  the 
Abbesses  refused.     "  One  dare  not  offend  the  King." 

On  December  15,  1757,  Sophie  Arnould,  seventeen  years  old, 
made  her  debilt  at  the  Opera. 

The  great  Clairon  had  taught  her  to  act,  Mile.  Fel  to  sing ; 
and  her  looks,  although  her  actual  beauty  was  a  disputed  question, 
were  all  in  her  favour.  "  A  frank,  attractive,  intellectual  face  " — 
so  she  said  herself ;  and  so  we  see,  as  we  regard  her  portraits. 
They  indeed  would  indicate  genuine  beauty  :  glorious,  gleaming 
eyes  are  there,  the  eyelids  exquisitely  narrowed  at  the  corners, 
the  eyebrows  sweeping  like  the  wings  of  a  distant  flying  bird. 
The  face  is  a  long  oval,  ineffably  expressive  :  "  I  never  saw  such 
beautiful  sorrow,"  said  C0II6,  a  diarist  of  the  time.  In  one  of 
her  portraits — the  most  famous,  the  historic  one,  by  La  Tour 
(engraved  by  Bourgeois  de  La  Richardi^re) — she  is  represented 
singing,  her  mouth  half-open  :  "  cette  grande  bouche  tourmentiel' 
which,  according  to  Mme.  Vig6e  Lebrun,  spoilt  her  beauty.  Her 
figure  was  slender  and  graceful ;  she  was  not  tall.  For  other 
attractions,  let  us  consult  herself  again  :  "  I  have  a  well-made 
leg,  a  pretty  foot,  and  arms  and  hands  good  enough  for  a  painter's 
model."  And,  best  of  all,  she  had  her  strangely  fascinating 
voice.  Quite  a  small  one,  yet  so  clear,  so  searching,  poignant, 
plaintive !  There  was  nothing  it  could  not  make  you  feel.  "  She 
had  cries  and  tears  and  sighs  and  sad  caresses  .  .  .  she  could 
make  her  audience  shiver  .  .  .  'twas  the  voice  of  Psyche  in 
Hades,  of  Agamemnon's  daughter  searching  for  the  lost  Achilles, 
of  Iphigenia  dragged  to  the  altar."  There  was  a  slight  huskiness 
sometimes,  so — "  It's  the  loveliest  asthma  I  ever  heard,"  said  the 
Abbe  Galiani.  Because  she  was  so  witty  herself,  every  one  tried 
to  be  witty  about  her  :  Galiani,  they  say,  hit  the  mark  here.  She 
lisped,  too,  but  the  seduction  that  may  lie  in  a  woman's  lisp  is 
incalculable,  as  she  was  aware :  "  it  wasn't  even  a  defect,"  she 
said  coolly  of  her  own  grasseyement.  But  there  was  one — at  that 
time — almost  irremediable  defect  in  her  beauty.  Her  teeth  were 
strikingly,  even  horribly,  bad ;  and  dentistry  was  then  in  its 
infancy.  The  coarseness  of  the  age  spared  her  no  detestable 
allusion  that  could  be  made:  one  shudders  at  the  uglinesses 
which  were  said  and  printed.  .  .  .  Her  skin  was  very  dark, 
I 


114  SOPHIE   ARNOULD 

Ughrement  muldiresse^  say  the  Goncourts ;  but  the  Police- 
Reports  did  not  choose  their  phrases  so  carefully.  "  Her  skin  is 
black  and  dry,"  said  one ;  "  black  and  oily,"  said  another.  The 
discrepancy  is  to  some  extent  reassuring. 


"  Mother  says  it's  going  to  the  devil  to  go  to  the  Opera.  Well, 
then,  going  to  the  devil  is  my  destiny."  So  Sophie  said,  and 
very  gallantly  faced  her  destiny !  Madame  Arnould  did  her 
best ;  she  hung  about  the  wings  and  frowned  at  the  elegant 
gentlemen  who  thronged  them — for  in  a  fortnight  after  her 
debtlt^  Sophie  was  Queen  of  the  Opera.  Thursday  was  her  night 
— and  Thursday  soon  became  the  night.  "  I  doubt  if  people 
would  take  anything  like  so  much  trouble  to  get  into  Heaven," 
said  a  wag.  Madame  Arnould  had  her  hands  full.  Bouquets 
were  thrown  at  the  debutante's  feet :  "  Ah,  gentlemen,"  said  the 
witty  mother  of  that  witty  daughter,  "  don't  strew  her  path  with 
thorns ! " 

How  many  lovers  }  Only  the  Police- Reports  knew.  How 
many  loves  ?  Two — not  more.  .  .  .  The  lovers  began  before 
she  was  grown-up.  Malezieux,  a  famous  dandy,  fell  a  victim  to 
her  when  she  was  fifteen.  He  pointed  out  to  her  how  Frangoise 
d'Aubigne,  fresh  as  the  day,  had  married  the  crippled  Scarron 
because  he  was  witty.  Our  redoubtable  Sophie  was  ready  with 
her  answer.  "  I'll  do  the  same  to-morrow,  on  the  condition  that 
my  husband  begins  by  being  a  witty  cripple — and  ends  by  being 
King ! "  * 


But  evil  days  had  fallen  upon  the  excellent  Arnould ;  he  had 
had  a  long  illness,  and  at  the  end  of  that,  a  long  bankruptcy. 
Now  something  had  to  be  done  to  make  money,  so  he  took  a 
house  in  the  Rue  des  Fosses-Saint- Germain-d'Auxerrois  where, 
calling  it  the  Hotel  de  Lisieux,  he  let  rooms  at  30  sous  a  night 
"  to  country-gentlemen  visiting  Paris."  One  of  them  was  soon 
occupied  by  a  young  man  called  Dorval,  twenty-five,  handsome, 
aristocratic-looking,  and  a  poet — come  to  Paris  to  study  and  get 

*  Mme.  Scarron,  later  Mme.  de  Maintenon,  married  Louis  XIV. 


SOPHIE   ARNOULD  115 

a  play  accepted.  But  for  a  young  literary  man,  he  did  very  little 
work,  and  had  a  great  deal  of  money.  His  clothes  were  incon- 
gruous, too — brocades,  lace-cuffs  ;  and  the  most  delicious  hampers 
were  always  being  sent  him  by  his  fond  parents,  containing  game, 
fish,  truffles,  butter,  wine.  Gracefully  he  would  ask  Madame 
Arnould  to  "  help  him  out  with  them  " — an  arrangement  which 
soon  ended  in  his  coming  to  the  family-table.  And  after  dinner, 
he  was  simply  perfect.  He  would  play  tric-trac  with  old  Arnould, 
he  would  argue  gloriously  with  Madame  ;  best  of  all,  he  would 
behave  so  discreetly  with  Sophie — for  of  Sophie  he  took  scarcely 
any  notice  at  all.  The  old  people  were  very  sympathetic  when 
one  night  he  was  attacked  with  a  terrible  headache  and  had  to 
go  to  bed  early.  Dull  was  the  evening  without  Dorval !  The  old 
people  went  off  early  too.  .  .  .  The  Hotel  de  Lisieux  might  have 
been  haunted  that  night,  there  were  so  many  light  footsteps  on 
the  stairs.  .  .  .  And  soon,  in  the  street,  a  nervous  little  bird  was 
panting  against  Dorval's  heart,  and  Dorval  was  muttering,  "  Con- 
found that  lackey  of  mine !  He  has  made  a  mistake — where's 
the  carriage } "  The  carriage  was  found  at  last.  "  Le  reste  va 
sans  dire  "  :     Sophie  and  Dorval  had  run  away  together. 

"That  lackey  of  mine" — odd  phrase  for  a  needy  young 
scribbler !  But  Dorval  was  not  Dorval  at  all.  Two  days  later, 
that  defaulting  lackey  brought  a  penitent  letter,  signed  LouiS, 
COMTE  DE  Brancas.  "  As  soon  as  I  am  a  widower,  I  promise 
and  vow  to  marry  your  daughter."  Could  anything  be  fairer — 
from  a  Count  ?  nay !  a  Duke  to-be,  for  the  old  Due  de  Lauraguais 
could  not  last  long.  .  .  .  Madame  Arnould  was  a  woman  of  the 
world  if  she  was  anything  :  she  went  to  see  them — a  little  nobly 
sad,  perhaps,  but  wonderfully  reasonable  ;  there  were  tears,  kisses, 
and  complete  forgiveness. 

There  was  another  lady  in  the  case,  though — Mme.  de 
Brancas.  She  too  was  a  bel  esprit,  and  though  her  husband 
was  only  her  husband,  she  disliked  this  sort  of  thing.  She  was 
exquisitely  malicious,  she  asked  the  most  insulting  questions  in 
the  sweetest  voice :  "  What  news  of  your  actress }  I've  been 
thinking  of  teaching  my  parrot  to  recite  Moliere.  .  .  .  Oh,  she's 
a  singer,  though."  Brancas,  who  was  very  quick-tempered,  flew 
out  at  his  wife ;  and  then  flew  out — to  his  mistress. 


116  SOPHIE   ARNOULD 

In  later  years,  Sophie  said,  "  M.  de  Lauraguais  has  given  me 
two  million  kisses,  and  made  me  shed  four  million  tears." 

"  Dorval " — soon  Due  de  Lauraguais — was  a  wonderful  fellow. 
"  Unfott  dHnfiniment  d' esprit^'  the  Goncourts  call  him — but,  mad- 
man or  not,  it  was  impossible  to  be  dull  in  his  company.  He 
knew  everything,  did  everything,  said  everything.  Sophie  ought 
in  justice  to  have  reckoned  the  number  of  times  he  had  made 
her  laugh ;  for  it  was  his  wit  which  brought  them  eternally 
together  again,  after  the  most  insulting  separation-scenes,  like 
the  one  which  was  played  during  his  absence  at  Ferney,  "  to  read 
a  tragedy  to  Voltaire  " — for  Lauraguais  could  write  tragedies  too. 
She,  weary  of  the  quarrels — he  was  desperately  jealous — took  all 
his  presents  (including  their  two  children),  packed  them  into  a 
carriage,  and  sent  the  whole  array,  carriage  included,  to  Mme.  de 
Lauraguais.  That  lady  was  superb.  She  sent  back  the  presents 
and  the  carriage,  disdainfully ;  as  disdainfully — she  kept  the 
children.  Even  Sophie's  laugh  must  have  faltered  before  that 
perfect  insult.  .  .  .  Lauraguais  hurried  back  and  then  went 
nearly  crazy,  for  already  Sophie  had  found  a  fresh  protector,  a 
M.  Bertin,  very  rich,  yet  unlucky  in  love.  He  had  just  been 
thrown  over  by  another  beautiful  actress,  and  was  quickly  served 
in  like  fashion  by  this  one,  though  he  lavished  unheard-of  sums 
upon  her.  Bertin  was  deceived  before  he  was  thrown  over,  for 
Sophie  had — "  as  women  of  the  theatre  so  often  do  " — taken  a 
violent  fancy  to  an  inferior :  one  Lacroix,  her  hairdresser.  She 
used  to  walk  about  with  him  on  Sundays,  like  a  little  milliner, 
radiant  and  elated :  Lacroix  was  proclaimed  as  tami  de  cmir. 
An  amusing  caprice !  but  Lauraguais,  vigilant  from  a  distance, 
knew  it  could  not  last.  It  did  not  last,  and  not  Bertin  it  was  who 
killed  it,  but  the  tempestuous,  indispensable  Dorval  himself.  He 
and  Bertin  arranged  matters  in  the  most  gentlemanly  way— 
Lauraguais  re-imbursed  his  lavish,  deserted  rival.  Lacroix  does 
not  seem  to  have  been  entirely  dismissed ;  for  in  1774,  when 
Gluck's  Iphighiie  en  Atdide  was  produced,  we  retrieve  him. 
A  lady  of  fashion,  Mme.  de  Hunolstein,  had  taken  a  violent  fancy 
to  Sophie,  and  had  asked  her  to  give  her  a  hat  like  one  which 
was  worn  in  the  opera.  But  the  hat  proved  unbecoming,  so  the 
lady  sent  it  back  and  asked  for  another.     The  bandbox  arrived 


■ 


SOPHIE  ARNOULD  117 


when  Sophie  was  having  her  hair  done.  The  Prince  d'Henin, 
a  dull  protector  of  the  moment,  was  in  her  room,  together  with 
Lacroix,  who  was  dressing  her  hair.  She  turned  with  a  malicious 
puzzled  frown,  holding  the  replenished  carton  out  in  both  hands. 
"  Let  me  see — whose  turn  is  it  to  run  errands  to-day  ? "  .  .  . 

H^nin  was  the  victim  of  Lauraguais'  most  diverting  practical 
joke.  He  summoned  four  doctors  to  a  consultation,  and  most 
solemnly  demanded  of  them  :  "  Can  a  person  die  of  boredom  ? " 
They,  thinking  it  was  a  family-affair,  and  well  acquainted  with 
the  strange  mental  condition  of  the  House  of  Brancas,  said  with 
one  voice  that  a  person  could,  and  signed  a  document  to  that 
effect,  adding  that  the  only  remedy  was  to  remove  the  cause. 
Armed  with  his  paper,  Lauraguais  gravely  went  to  the  Police 
and  lodged  a  complaint  against  Henin  for  endangering  the  life 
of  the  popular  actress,  Mile.  Sophie  Arnould.  How  Paris  laughed 
— and,  better  still,  how  Sophie  laughed !  Hdnin  called  Laura- 
guais out ;  but  that  was  nothing,  for  had  not  Sophie  called  him 
in  ?  .  .  .  So  the  good  hours  were  renewed,  and  no  matter  how 
troublesome  he  was,  the  good  hours  made  up  for  the  quarrels,  for 
they  were  bound  together  by  their  scintillating  wit — "  'twas  their 
wedding-ring,"  say  the  Goncourts,  rivalling  them  in  brilliancy. 

Sophie  was  the  wittiest  woman  of  her  time.  A  whole  book 
{Arnoldiana)  has  been  published  of  her  sallies,  quips,  epigrams, 
"definitions  of  the  indefinable,  as  if  one  should  shoot  at  a 
ghost ! "  .  .  .  There  was  the  famous  speech  to  the  poet  Bernard 
found  one  day  lying  under  a  tree  alone.  "  What  are  you  doing } " 
asked  she.  "  I  am  talking  to  myself."  "  Take  care,  then — you 
are  talking  to  a  flatterer."  And  in  another  vein,  more  usual  and 
more  facile,  her  endless  gibing  at  the  "  reputation  "  of  her  com- 
rades :  V esprit gaulois  in  full  blood,  and  untranslatable,  unprintable! 
Again,  to  the  friend  of  doubtful  age,  who  said  it  was  dreadful  to 
be  approaching  forty :  "  Ah,  well !  never  you  mind,  for  every  day 
takes  you  further  away  from  it ! "  Or  the  remark  to  Mile.  Heinel, 
a  dancer  who  made  Lauraguais  faithless  for  a  period,  and  then 
married  Gaetano  Vestris,  who  in  the  early  days  had  disliked  her 
and  called  her  tme  catin.  Heinel  complained  of  the  epithet  to 
Sophie,  and  Sophie  said,  "  People  are  so  rude  nowadays :  they 
call  things  by  their  right  names."      Her  comrades  indeed  had 


118  SOPHIE  ARNOULD 

much  to  bear.  There  was  Mile.  Guimard,  another  dancer  (whose 
name  still  lives) — Guimard,  the  unimaginably  thin  !  "  When  I  see 
her  dancing  that  pas  de  trois  with  the  men,  it  reminds  me  of  two 
dogs  fighting  for  a  bone."  And  when  this  "Skeleton  of  the 
Graces,"  who  was  not  graceful,  broke  her  arm :  "  What  a  pity  it 
wasn't  her  leg,  for  then  she  need  not  have  been  prevented  from 
dancing."  Everything  made  an  opportunity.  She  meets  a  doctor 
with  a  gun  under  his  arm,  going  to  see  a  patient.  "  Ah !  I  see 
you're  afraid  of  missing  him  the  other  way."  And  that  night  at 
the  Opera  when  she  was  announced  to  appear — and  appeared  only 
in  a  box  above  the  stage  !  "  What  brought  you  there,  madame  ? " 
says  a  stern  Director ;  "  you  were  said  to  be  ill."  "  I  thought  it 
was  a  splendid  opportunity  for  studying  my  understudy."  But 
among  the  best,  to  our  thinking,  was  the  speech  to  the  great  lady 
who  said  loudly  in  her  hearing  that  there  ought  to  be  a  badge  of 
honour  by  which  decent  women  might  be  distinguished  from  "  the 
creatures."  "  Ah,  madame  ! "  Sophie  said,  turning  quickly,  "  how 
can  you  wish  that  ?  The  *  creatures '  could  count  you,  then^  In 
1763,  when  the  Opera-House  was  burned  down  and  the  Parisians 
were  heartlessly  saying,  *'  What,  no  water  ready !  But  who  could 
dream  that  an  ice-house  would  go  on  fire  ? " — another  great  lady 
came  in  for  the  lash.  "  Oh,  Mile.  Arnould  "  (meeting  her  next 
day),  "  perhaps  you  can  tell  me  " :  and  she  asked  for  particulars 
of  "  cette  terrible  incendie."  "  All  that  I  can  tell  you,  madame,"  said 
the  *  terrible '  Sophie,  "  is  that  incendie  is  a  masculine  noun." 

But  one  might  quote  for  ever  from  that  "flight  of  wasps." 
The  deepest  note  she  struck  was  in  her  wonderful  reply  to  the 
ubiquitous  Police-Officer  Sartines,  sent  to  make  inquiries  after  a 
supper  which  had  ended  with  lampoons  upon  the  great,  now 
dying,  but  ever-revengeful,  Pompadour.  Sophie  received  him 
quite  agreeably.     He  began  : 

"  Where  did  you  sup  last  night  ? " 

"  I  forget." 

"  You  supped  at  home,  madame." 

"  Very  possibly." 

"  You  had  company." 

"  I  often  do." 

"  Persons  of  high  rank." 


SOPHIE  ARNOULD  119 

"  That  happens  sometimes  also." 

"  Who  were  they  ?  " 

"  I  forget." 

"  But  it  seems  to  me  that  a  woman  like  you  would  probably 
remember  things  of  that  sort." 

"  Yes  ;  but  before  a  man  likeyou^  I  am  not  a  woman  like  meP 

The  great  Mesmer  was  electrifying  Paris  just  then ;  and, 
Sophie's  little  dog  falling  ill,  she  insisted  on  consulting  him 
instead  of  the  fashionable  veterinary  surgeon,  Lionnois.  The 
adored  little  dog  was  returned  to  her  with  a  clean  bill  of  health 
from  Mesmer,  but  within  a  week  from  that  day,  it  died.  "  Well, 
/  have  nothing  to  reproach  myself  with :  the  poor  little  animal 
died  in  perfect  health." 


Paris  was  at  her  feet  for  twenty  years.  She  did  what  she 
liked,  said  what  she  liked,  was  what  she  liked — and  Paris  (and 
the  Directors  of  the  Opera)  bore  it  all.  Belanger,  the  rising 
young  architect  of  the  day,  drew  up  the  plans  for  a  magnificent 
house  in  the  Chaussee-d'Antin,  which  was  to  be  finer  even  than 
the  frail  Guimard's !  (The  plans  still  exist,  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Nationale  ;  but  it  was  never  built.)  Belanger  was  the  only  other 
man  whom  she  seriously  cared  for.  He  was  gay,  clever,  youthful 
with  the  exhilarating  youthfulness  of  the  artist,  and  a  wit  of 
course — for  she  could  not  love  without  that  lure.  And  then  he 
was  of  her  own  station,  and  he  was  utterly  grateful  for  her  love. 
He,  like  Lauraguais,  always  came  back,  and  always  with  a  jest  or 
a  practical  joke.  So  long  did  it  last  that  people  said  they  must 
be  married.  It  was  not  Belanger's  fault  that  they  were  not,  and 
Sophie  used  to  let  the  gossip  pass  ;  once,  indeed,  when  twitted 
with  having  thrown  herself  away  on  a  mere  bourgeois^  she 
answered,  "  Well,  so  many  stones  are  cast  at  me  that  I  thought 
an  architect  would  be  the  best  person  to  make  use  of  them." 

The  gay  life  !  Wit  and  fame  and  beauty,  delightful  suppers, 
perfect  cooking,  perfect  talking — intellectual,  when  she  wanted 
that  vein,  inexpressibly  obscene,  when  she  wanted  that  one  ; 
triumphs  at  the  Opera — Gluck,  "  the  musician  of  the  soul "  (as 
she  called  him),  appearing  just  in  time  to  give  her  fresh  ^clat 


120  SOPHIE   ARNOULD 

when  her  earlier  parts  were  getting  too  familiar,  and  she  was 
getting  tired  of  them  herself.  Rameau  had  been  the  composer 
until  Gluck  came ;  her  greatest  part  had  been  Z^laYre,  in  his 
Castor  et  Pollux.  Garrick  saw  her  in  it,  and  thought  Clairon 
far  inferior  to  her  as  an  actress.  Nevertheless,  Sophie  was  weary 
of  Zelafre ;  she  was  getting  careless — she  under-acted,  under- 
sang  ;  the  management  grew  angry.  It  threatened  a  bad  hour — 
when  in  1774  Gluck  appeared,  and  Paris  was  at  Sophie's  feet 
again,  for  she  sang  and  ^ict^d  IpkigMe  enAulide  as  even  she  had 
never  sung  or  acted  before.  The  Iphiginie  was  epoch-making. 
Gluck  had  found  his  singer,  and  Sophie  her  composer.  But 
alas,  that  sorry  chain  of  Court-intrigue !  Marie-Antoinette 
was  Gluck's  patroness ;  Mercy-Argenteau  was  the  Austrian 
Ambassador  ;  Rosalie  Levasseur,  Sophie's  one  rival,  was  Mercy's 
mistress  .  .  .  and,  to  complicate  matters  further,  the  Prince 
d'Henin,  then  Sophie's  protector,  took  it  into  his  stupid  head  to 
be  rude  to  Gluck.  After  a  quarrel  at  her  house,  Gluck  left  it, 
saying  he  would  never  return — and  he  never  did.  When  Alceste 
was  produced  in  1778,  Rosalie  was  given  the  principal  part.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  the  end,  and  Sophie  knew  it.  She  shot  one 
arrow.  "  Rosalie  ought  to  have  the  part :  she  has  the  voice  of 
the  people^' — for  Levasseur's  voice  was  coarse  and  harsh.  Rosalie 
retorted  with  a  filthy  lampoon  ;  there  were  cabals,  cliques,  friendly 
and  unfriendly  articles — and  the  strangest  consequence  of  all 
was  that  the  incomparable  Iphigenie  of  the  first  Gluck-production 
was  now  spoken  of  as  the  champion  of  the  anti-Gluck  School ! 

It  waSy  practically,  the  very  end.  She  had  one  more  great 
success — in  a  little  opera  of  the  "  old  school,"  Euthyme  et  Lyris^ 
played  twenty-six  times,  amid  tumult  of  the  Gluck-party ;  then 
her  star  fell  quite  from  Heaven,  and  she  heard  her  dismissal  from 
a  hundred  hateful  throats  when  she  sang  the  line : 

"  Vous  briiles  queje  soispartief" 
— in  her  great  part  of  Iphiginie ! — and  the  whole  house  reeled 
with  brutal  mocking  applause. 


In   that  moment,  Sophie  Arnould  expiated  all  her  errors. 
Imagination  refuses  to  dwell  on  what  such  things  must  mean  to 


SOPHIE   ARNOULD  121 

those  who  endure  them.  Even  Jter  gallant  humour  must  have 
failed  her.  .  .  .  She  retired  definitely  in  1778.  For  a  little  while 
her  salon  cheered  her;  everyone  came  there — even  Voltaire 
himself,  who  arrived  one  day  in  doleful  mood,  saying  that  "  he 
was  eighty-four  years  old  and  had  done  eighty-four  foolish 
things."  "  Dear  me  !  "  cried  she,  "  what's  that  ?  I'm  not  forty 
yet,  and  I've  done  more  than  a  thousand  !  "  One  fears  that 
Voltaire,  himself  a  wit,  may  not  have  relished  such  too-brilliant 
consolation. 

But  in  reality,  from  1777  to  her  death,  it  was  all  downhill. 
From  riches  to  poverty — poverty  to  penury — penury  to  starvation 
— starvation  to  an  unknown  grave.  She  was  badly  in  debt,  her 
voice  was  gone,  her  lovers  were  gone  too.  She  gave  up  her 
house  in  Paris  and  went  to  live  in  the  country — first  at  Clichy, 
then  at  Luzarches,  where  she  bought  an  old,  almost  ruined  Priory, 
and  (still  witty!)  inscribed  over  the  doorway:  "//^,  missa  est" — 
the  words  of  dismissal  from  Mass.  There  she  planted  cabbages 
and  fried  them  for  her  dinner,  kept  cocks  and  hens,  turkeys, 
pigs,  rabbits,  and  pigeons — until  these  last  proved  too  expensive 
to  feed.  She  looked  after  her  garden,  cut  her  own  wood,  and 
enjoyed  herself :  "  not  one  moment's  ennui"  she  wrote.  But  even 
these  mild  joys  were  too  good  to  last.  The  pigeons  had  grown 
too  expensive ;  soon  almost  everything  grew  too  expensive. 
The  nine  years  from  1793  to  1802  were  terrible — would  have 
been  unbearable  if  she  had  not  still  kept  Belanger  and  Laura- 
guais  as  friends.  To  Belanger  especially  she  wrote.  He  was 
married  now,  but  she  was  still  dear  to  him  for  old  times'  sake, 
and  the  "poor  fairy"  acquiesced  in  that  humble  relationship, 
calling  him  My  true  friend.  My  good  angel.  .  .  .  But,  "  What  are 
wc  .  .  .  to  grow  old  } "  she  broke  out  once  ;  and  then  summoned 
again  the  old  hardihood  :  "  Never  mind !  At  the  end  of  the 
ditch,  the  fall." 

Lauraguais  she  never  forgot — to  Lauraguais,  despoiled  by 
the  Revolution  and  now  almost  as  poor  as  herself,  she  used 
even  still  the  tone  of  tenderness.  In  1798  he  wrote  and  asked 
"  dear  old  Sophie "  to  come  and  share  his  country  retreat  at 
Manicamp.  She  did  not  go,  but  when  in  1800  she  went  to  live 
in  Paris  again,  at  the  Hdtel  d'Angivilliers,  she  in  her  turn  invited 


122  SOPHIE  ARNOULD 

"  Dorval "  to  come  to  her.  "  You  will  have  to  do  without  much 
attendance,  for  I  have  only  one  old  servant,  but  what  will  that 
matter  ?  /  will  do  everything  you  want,"  and  she  quoted  fondly 
from  some  sentimental  poet : 

^^  Ah/  qu^on  est  heureiix de  d^chausser  ce  qu^on  aime ! " 

Lauraguais  refused  her  offer,  but  he  frequently  visited  her,  and 
they  talked  over  the  old  days  together.  He  could  not  help  her 
much,  neither  could  Belanger  ;  she  suffered  terrible  privations. 
She  was  ill ;  then  she  had  a  fall — it  brought  on  a  dangerous 
tumour,  and,  so  reduced  as  she  was,  that  killed  her.  She  had 
to  face  "  the  hideous  creature  called  Death  " :  her  priest  came 
to  help  her.  It  was  in  1802,  the  year  that  saw  the  deaths  of 
Clairon  and  Dumesnil. 

Sophie  Arnould's  last  words  ?  Her  name  was  Magdalen, 
as  we  remember  ;  and  she  murmured  "...  quia  multum  amavit" 
with  her  eyes — they  kept  all  their  loveliness — smiling  into  the 
priestly  face.  Then,  as  she  confessed  further,  and  the  tale  of 
"  Dorval's "  jealousies,  caprices,  violences,  came  to  be  told,  the 
cur^  cried  compassionately : 

"My  daughter,  what  evil  days  you  have  lived  through 
indeed!" 

And  she  made  the  supreme,  the  immortal  epigram  of  all  her 
brilliant  life. 

'^  Aky  les  beaux  jours  l""^  murmured  dying  Sophie  Arnould, 
"  ah^  les  beaux  jours  !  J'etais  si  malheureuse  !  " 


JEANNE  DU  BARRY 

1743-1793 

WHEN  Louis  XV.  of  France  fell  in  love  with  Made- 
moiselle   Jeanne    Vaubarnier,    he    said,    with    an 
affectation  of  carelessness,  to  the  witty  Due  d'Ayen, 
"  Is  it  true  that  I  have,  as  they  say,  succeeded  to  Sainte-Foy  ? " 

"  Sire,"  answered  D Ayen,  "  Your  Majesty  has  succeeded  to 
Sainte-Foy,  as  you  have  succeeded  to  Pharamond." 

Louis  did  not  even  know  her  real  name.  She  was  passing 
as  Mademoiselle  Vaubarnier  when  he  saw  her  first,  and  that  was 
her  third  nom  de  guerre.  .  .  .  From  the  maze  of  falsehood  which 
surrounds  her  now,  and  surrounded  her  then,  it  has  been  the 
thirty-years'  work  of  one  writer — M.  Charles  Vatel — to  extricate 
the  truth.  In  his  monumental  three  volumes  we  have  all  that  is 
known  of  her — documents  innumerable,  birth,  marriage,  and  death 
certificates,  not  only  hers,  but  those  of  almost  every  one  she 
knew  !  Yet  from  our  awed  perusal  we  rise  with  the  feeling  that 
we  understand  her  little  better  than  we  did  before,  so  true  it  is 
that  mere  facts  are  uninterpretative  of  character. 

To  understand  her  we  must  turn  to  the  short  study  by 
Edmond  and  Jules  de  Goncourt.  Errors  abound  there,  but  the 
seeing  eye  atones  for  all.  Jeanne  Du  Barry,  "  the  best-treated 
kept- woman  in  the  kingdom,"  with  her  easy  virtue  and  her  easy 
virtues,  her  lavish  generosity  and  her  more  than  lavish  self- 
indulgence,  with  her  good-humour,  her  frivolity,  her  impudence, 
and  her  incomparable  loveliness — Jeanne  Du  Barry  lives  there, 
breathes  there,  as  she  does  in  no  other  of  the  many  memoirs  of 
this  last  Queen  of  the  Left  Hand,  "  who  became  an  historic 
personage  by  accident,  one  might  almost  say — by  mistake." 

123 


124  JEANNE   DU  BARRY 

Her  real  name  was  Jeanne  Becu,  daughter  of  Anne  Becu, 
sempstress,  and  of  a  father  unknown  to  this  day.  Her  maternal 
grandfather,  Fabien  B^cu,  had  been  a  roasting-cook  at  Paris, 
under  Louis  XIV.  He  was  remarkably  good-looking:  a 
Countess  had  fallen  in  love  with  him  and  married  him.  She 
quickly  died,  and  handsome  Becu  quickly  consoled  himself.  He 
married  this  time  a  fellow-servant,  Jeanne  Husson  ;  she  bore  him 
seven  children,  of  whom  Anne  was  one.  This  daughter  inherited 
her  father's  attractions.  Calling  herself  a  sempstress,  she  lived  "  in 
a  style  which  indicated  other  ways  and  means  than  the  needle  "  ; 
and  on  the  19th  of  August,  1743,  the  little  unfathered  daughter 
was  born  at  Vaucouleurs — a  small,  ineffably  dreary  place,  "  five 
long  leagues  from  Domremy,"  says  Vatel,  thus  demolishing 
Carlyle's  glittering,  long-accepted  paradox  of  "Joan  of  Arc's 
country." 

Between  1747  and  1749,  Anne  B^cu  moved  to  Paris.  There 
she  married  a  "  domestic,"  Nicolas  Ran^on  by  name,  and  herself 
went  out  as  a  cook.  "  Why,"  asks  Vatel,  "  did  not  Choiseul  use 
this  weapon  of  Jeanne's  low  origin  (easily-proved)  against  her, 
instead  of  the  campaign  of  calumny  ?  The  horde  of  cooks, 
valets,  liveried  folk  .  .  .  who  could  use  the  *  thee-and-thou '  to 
her,  address  her  as  uncle  addresses  niece,  and  cousin  cousin !  " 
Choiseul  needed  only  to  unmask  the  crew  ;  instead,  he  slandered 
the  King's  mistress.  "  Stout  Choiseul  went  his  way  unheeding," 
says  Carlyle  ;  but  Carlyle  took  his  information  from  Besenval, 
Choiseul's  friend.  We  shall  see  what  the  stoutness  and  unheed- 
ing course  were  worth,  and  in  what  they  resulted. 

Jeanne,  at  six,  was  placed  in  a  convent  by  a  rich  protector — 
no  scandal  about  M.  Billard-Dumonceaux ! — who  plainly  had  a 
low  opinion  of  Anne  Rangon,  for  the  institution  was  designed 
for  "those  young  people  who  are  in  circumstances  tending  to 
the  risk  of  moral  ruin."  Jeanne  was  living  at  the  time  with  her 
mother,  now  a  married  woman :  the  implication  is  clear. 

The  convent  rule  was  stern.  Forbidden  and  punished  were 
"  little  delicate  airs,"  laughter,  joking,  teasing ;  and  the  dress  was 
hideous.  Jeanne  stayed  till  she  was  fifteen — and  then  the  golden 
head  emerged  from  black  woollen  veil  and  coarse  unstarched 
bands,   the   exquisite    form   from   shapeless   hideous   robe,   the 


JEANNE   DU   BARRY  125 

** perfect  little  feet"  from  abominable  yellow  shoes.  .  .  .  Little 
Lange — as  she  was  called — went  out  as  lady's-maid  to  the  widow 
of  a  rich.  fermier-gMral.  She  did  not  stay.  For  a  lady's-maid 
she  was  probably  both  too  well-  and  too  ill-fitted.  The  duties 
would  be  perfunctorily  done,  one  guesses — the  sous-entendus  of 
the  part  too  visibly  congenial.  .  .  .  With  her  next  place,  however, 
she  fell  into  her  niche.  It  was  that  of  a  milliner's  apprentice  at 
Labille's,  a  prominent  modiste  of  the  day.  "  Imagine  the  great 
glittering  shop,  where  all  day  long,  charming  idlers,  handsome 
great  gentlemen,  lounged  and  ogled  ;  the  pretty  milliner  tripping 
through  the  streets,  her  head  covered  by  a  big  black  calklte, 
whence  her  golden  curls  escaped,  her  round  dainty  waist  defined 
by  a  linen  pinafore  frilled  with  muslin,  her  feet  in  little  high- 
heeled,  buckled  shoes,  and  in  her  hand  a  tiny  fan  which  she  uses 
as  she  goes — and  then  imagine  the  conversations,  proposals, 
replies  !  "*  It  is  indeed  not  difficult  to  imagine  all  this.  The 
scandalous  anecdotists  of  later  days  found  it  so  easy  that  they  had 
energy  to  spare,  and  used  it  on  affirming  that  the  pretty  milliner 
W2is  unefille  pfiblique.  This  is  utterly  a  lie.  ^^  Jeanne  B^cu"  sKys 
the  irrefutable  Vatel,  "  n^a  appartenu  ni  d  la  prostitution  publique^ 
ni  mhne  d  la  prostitution  clandestine''  At  Labille's  she  was 
simply  a  pretty,  flighty  grisette,  who,  in  the  quaint  phrase  of  an 
old  writer,  ne  demandait  pas  mieux.  It  was  in  1761  that  she 
definitely  entered  the  half-world,  and  at  a  private  gaming-den  in 
Paris  (kept  by  a  reputed  "  Marquise  "  Duquesnay)  met  the  man 
who  was  to  lead  her  to  "  the  heights  of  harlotry  and  rascaldom  " 
— Jean  Du  Barry,  called  Count,  a  title  to  which  his  family, 
though  noble,  had  no  right  whatever.  At  the  time,  Jeanne  was 
known  as  Mademoiselle  Beauvarnier.  The  name  is  still  given 
her  in  encyclopaedias  and  biographical  dictionaries. 

Jean  Du  Barry  was  no  mere  vulgar  libertine,  but  an  accom- 
plished and  perfect  scoundrel.  He  was  very  clever,  good-looking, 
witty,  "  with  the  amusing  Gascon  accent,"  and  the  inveterate 
Gascon  belief  that  he  was  born  to  be  a  hero  of  adventures.  He 
was  liked  by  women — the  sort  of  women  he  knew.  It  was  said 
that  he  "  covered  them  with  gold  and  diamonds."  Jeanne  would 
do  anything  for  diamonds  ;  for  diamonds  she  became  his  mistress 
*  MM.  dc  Goncourt. 


126  JEANNE   DU   BARRY 

and  decoy.  Du  Barry  eked  out  the  salary  from  a  Government 
appointment  by  the  profits  of  his  card-tables,  presided  over  by  one 
lovely  money-spinner  after  another,  and  he  never  had  had  one  so 
lovely  as  this.  It  soon  became  a  mark  of  fashion  among  men  to 
have  "  supped  at  least  with  Mademoiselle  Vaubarnier " — for 
Jeanne's  choice  of  a  name  had  not  pleased  her  protector, 
who  found  it  too  obviously  de  fantaisie.  He  did  not,  however, 
rack  his  brains  much  for  a  fresh  one  :  he  merely  altered  the 
position  of  two  letters — Vaubarnier  replaced  Beauvarnier  ! 

Scoundrel  though  he  was,  he  was  an  agreeable  man.  His 
house  was  gay,  he  made  a  perfect  host ;  distinguished  roues 
clustered  round  The  Roui,  as  he  had  the  honour  to  be  dubbed. 
That  "  evergreen  sinner  "  Richelieu  ;  the  Due  de  Nivernais  (Lord 
Chesterfield's  pattern  for  his  son)  ;  the  Prince  de  Ligne  and  the 
Due  de  Lauzun,  as  sentimental  as  he  was  vicious  ;  the  epigram- 
matized  Sainte-Foy — all  met  there.  The  women  were  naturally 
fewer.  The  Comtesse  La  Rena,  mistress  of  "  Milord  March  " 
(afterwards  England's  proud  possession,  "  Old  Q  "),  and  Made- 
moiselle Legrand  "a  sort  of  Ninon  de  Lenclos,"  seem  to  have 
been  the  only  ones.  At  the  latter's  semi-literary  salon,  Jeanne 
met  other  types  of  men — Julie  de  I'Espinasse's  Guibert,  Crd- 
billon,  CoUe,  Favier — all  with  a  little  tag  of  literary  fame.  The 
pretty  milliner  was  being  dkrassee  !  She  soon  learned  ease  and 
adroitness,  outward  dignity— how  to  behave  herself,  in  short,  when 
necessary.  She  knew  already — what  in  the  end  proved  even 
more  important — how  not  to  behave  herself  when  the  amusing 
moment  arrived.  She  understood,  in  fact,  her  business :  "  she 
was  the  essential  courtesan  ;  she  had  all  the  cynicism,  animation, 
and  refinements  of  her  trade."  .  .  .  Thus  for  four  years  she 
lived,  quite  happy :  gambling,  laughing,  getting  diamonds,  laces, 
silk-gowns,  "  two  dozen  corsets,"  driving  in  a  gilded  chariot  with 
two  children,  neither  hers  nor  Du  Barry's,  whom  she  dressed  beauti- 
fully— ^^  une  femme  entretenue,  dans  Tacception  la  phis  ^tendue  de 
ces  mots!'  Yes  indeed  !  for  it  was  said  that  Du  Barry  permitted, 
even  encouraged,  rivals.  .  .  .  And  then,  in  the  spring  of  1768,  the 
Fairy-Tale  began. 

No  mistress  had  reigned  at  Court  since  the  death  of  Madame 
de  Pompadour  in  1764.     There  had  been  many  passing  caprices— 


JEANNE  DU  BARRY  127 

the  aftermath  of  the  Parc-aux-Cerfs  ;  and  there  had  been  one  false 
alarm,  when  Madame  d'Esparb^s,  a  Court  lady,  had  been  actually 
on  the  eve  of  proclamation.  But  the  Prime  Minister,  Due  de 
Choiseul,  was  resolved  that  the  new  Queen  of  the  Left  Hand 
should  be  his  sister,  Duchesse  de  Grammont,  or  nobody.  He 
had  nipped  the  d'Esparb^s  hopes  in  the  bud.  Richelieu  (already 
Jean  Du  Barry's  friend)  wanted  a  favourite  who  would  play  into 
his  hands  ;  while  Lebel,  the  rascally  Royal  valet,  trusted  things 
would  remain  as  they  were,  for  he  found  very  solid  profit  in 
satisfying  the  Royal  caprices.  It  seemed  to  Lebel  that  fate  was 
playing  as  his  partner  when  the  King  lost  his  head  over  a  pretty 
nobody  who  had  come  to  Versailles  on  an  affair  of  business  with 
M.  de  Choiseul.  His  Majesty,  ever  on  the  watch  for  prey,  had 
caught  sight  of  the  ravishing  girl ;  and  Lebel  soon  ascertained 
that  there  would  be  no  difficulty  about  "  arrangements."  Made- 
moiselle Vaubarnier  assuredly  made  no  difficulty;  Du  Barry, 
whose  ambition  it  long  had  been  to  supply  a  Royal  Favourite 
made  none  either.  Jeanne  accepted  the  affair  light-heartedly — 
dazzled,  no  doubt,  and  ecstatically  anticipant  of  diamonds,  but,  for 
anything  else,  as  unruffled  as  you  please.  "  She  had  the  wit  to 
affect  no  embarrassment,  and  the  honesty  not  to  deceive  the 
King  about  her  experience.  She  rejected  the  airs  of  innocence 
which  Louis  was  so  accustomed  to — that  sacrificial  confusion  with 
which  even  the  sagest  women  imagined  they  must  flatter  the 
Royal  lover.  She  was  herself;  she  treated  the  King  as  a  man, 
and  as  the  King  was  a  man — he  fell  in  love  with  her  at  the  first 
interview." 

The  first  interview  was  in  the  early  spring  of  1768,  but 
I  nothing  was  known  of  the  affair  till  the  end  of  July.  The  Court 
had  been  in  mourning:  the  Queen,  unhappy  Marie-Leczinska, 
had  ended  her  blundering  life  on  June  24th.  .  .  .  That  must  have 
been  an  anxious  three  or  four  months  for  the  Du  Barry  7nMage  ! 
Jeanne  may  have  been  heedless.  "  It  would  be  all  right,  and  if  it 
wasn't— ^?^/  alorsl"  But  Du  Barry  was  of  different  stuff. 
Brilliant,  ambitious,  and  a  born  intriguer,  he  had  "  that  supreme 
contempt  for  humanity  which  makes  a  man  believe  that  any- 
thing is  possible,  and  frequently  enables  him  to  justify  his  belief." 
At  a  glance,  he  saw  what  the  girl  might  do.     Queen  of  the  Left 


128  JEANNE   DU  BARRY 

Hand,  why  not  ?  He  set  himself  to  train  her,  to  develop  in  her 
the  stuff  of  which  favourites  are  made.  No  Parc-aux-Cerfs  for 
Mademoiselle  Vaubarnier!  He  fetched  his  clever,  ugly  sister, 
Fanchon,  to  Paris,  and  between  them  they  tutored  the  goose  who 
was  to  lay  the  golden  eggs.  It  is  a  proof  of  their  great  intelli- 
gence that  they  recognized  her  natural  gifts — her  unblushing 
effrontery,  her  pretty  impudence,  her  spontaneity ;  and  left  all 
that  alone. 

Moreover,  Louis  had  found  her  for  himself;  she  had  not  been 
brought  to  him  by  his  go-betweens.  That  was  an  immense 
attraction  to  the  worn-out,  blas^  King.  He  was  not  more  than 
fifty-eight,  but  he  had  never  been  young.  Nothing  had  ever 
amused  him,  nothing  had  ever  interested  him.  "  What  would 
life  be  without  coffee .?  What  is  it,  with  coffee  ? "  .  .  .  That 
was  his  attitude.  And  to  this  man  arrives  the  incarnation  of 
youth  and  mirth  and  folly  in  the  exquisite  form  of  Jeanne 
Vaubarnier  !  That  he  is  King  seems  hardly  to  occur  to  her  :  he 
is  a  man — and  she  knows  all  about  men.  .  .  .  The  famous  anecdote 
of  the  coffee-pot — how  futile  to  deny  it !  If  it  did  not  happen,  it 
was  merely  by  mistake  that  it  did  not.  The  King  likes  to  brew 
his  own  coffee,  and  once  when  he  is  with  her,  the  coffee-pot  boils 
over  while  he  is  not  looking.  "  Eh  !  La  France^  prends  done 
garde  !     Ton  caf^f —  le  camp  I " 

Untranslatable — partly  in  truth  to  most  of  us,  unintelligible  ; 
but  that  very  fact  is  convincing !  La  France  ("  as  she  named 
her  Royal  valet ")  was  the  name  of  one  of  her  lackeys.  Could 
she  conceivably  have  diverted  its  use  to  the  King }  Many 
writers  cry  "  Impossible  !  "  To  us,  nothing,  with  what  we  know 
of  her,  seems  more  characteristic.  Impudence  in  private  was  as 
much  her  pose — if  the  word  can  be  applied  to  such  spontaneity — 
as  decorum  and  gentleness  were  in  public.  That  combination,  in 
the  courtesan,  is  surely  as  old  as  story ! 

And  then,  to  make  it  the  more  delightful  to  our  ennuyi — her 
enchanting  loveliness,  rare  as  it  was  exquisite.  Her  masses  of 
hair,  of  that  silver-gold  which  gives  such  sweetness  and  such 
harmony  to  the  face  ;  her  brown  arched  eyebrows,  brown  curling 
eyelashes,  like  rays  around  the  melting  blue  eyes,  with  that  dewy 
gleam  in  them  which  only  Greuze  can  depict !  .  .  .  "  Then  there 


\ 


JEANNE   DU   15ARRY 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING   AFTER   THE   MINIATURE   KY   RICHARD   COSWAY 


JEANNE   DU  BARRY  129 

was  a  little  Greek  nose,  finely  chiselled,  and  the  bent  bow  of  a 
delicious  tiny  mouth.  Her  complexion  was  as  fair  and  fresh  as 
an  infant's  " — so  brilliant  and  so  pure  that  she  never  wore  paint 
or  powder.  Her  arms,  her  hands,  her  feet  were  perfect ;  she  had 
a  neck  "  with  which  most  would  be  wise  to  shun  comparison  "  ; 
and  all  around  her  was  the  atmosphere  of  triumphant  youth — 
"  that  perfume  and  light  as  of  an  amorous  goddess,  which  made 
Voltaire  say  of  her  portrait :  *  U original  ^tait  fait  pour  les  dieux!  " 

And  he  had  found  all  this  for  himself!  Louis  XV.  was 
content,  then,  to  succeed  Sainte-Foy  as  he  had  succeeded 
Pharamond  ;  but,  having  succeeded,  he  reigned  alone.  He  was 
tenacious  of  that  dignity :  it  was  almost  the  only  one  he  retained, 
except  in  appearance.  In  youth,  his  head  had  been  remarkable 
for  its  plastic  beauty,  and  he  never  entirely  lost  this  regal  air. 
His  personal  dignity  was  to  the  end  supreme. 

Du  Barry  was  right.  It  was  going  to  last !  When  Lebel, 
alarmed  at  the  duration  of  this  caprice,  warned  His  Majesty  that 
the  new  mistress  was  not  a  woman  of  quality,  nor  even  married, 
the  King  merely  exclaimed,  "  Let  a  husband  be  found  for  her  at 
once  !  "  For  etiquette  demanded  that  the  favourite  should  be  a 
married  woman.  Du  Barry  was  at  no  loss.  He  was  unluckily 
himself  a  married  man,  but  he  had  a  brother,  Guillaume,  living 
quietly  down  at  Toulouse.  Guillaume  was  fetched  to  Paris, 
instructed,  and  persuaded.  He  acquiesced,  and  The  Rou6  then 
set  to  work  at  the  marriage-contract.  It  was  a  mere  mass  of 
lies,  and  the  marriage-certificate  was  forged.  Jeanne  was  pro- 
vided with  a  father,  Jean- Jacques  Gomard  de  Vaubarnier  ;  three 
years  were  taken  off  her  age,  though  she  was  only  twenty-five, 
and  thus,  aware  and  unprotesting,  she  went,  at  5  a.m.  on 
September  ist,  1768,  to  the  "  sacred  ceremony"  at  the  Church  of 
Saint-Laurent,  and  left  it — Madame  Du  Barry.  She  and  her 
husband  parted  at  the  church-door,  and  never  saw  one  another 
again.  .  .  .  There  is  the  truth,  and  Louis  never  knew  it.  He 
had  been  duped — most  flagrantly,  most  punishably,  if  the  roguery 
had  been  discovered ;  yet  the  man  who  could  have  easily 
discovered  it,  the  enemy  of  Jeanne  Du  Barry — Choiseul,  the 
Prime  Minister — never  had  courage  to  obtain  the  proofs  which 
might  have  left  him  master  of  the  situation.     He  preferred,  as 


130  JEANNE   DU  BARRY 

his  manner  was,  the  subterranean  method — with  what  results  we 
shall  see. 

All  that  Jeanne  desired  from  this  new  adventure  was  more 
diamonds,  more  silk-dresses,  laces,  pretty  things  of  every  kind ; 
but  she  quickly  found  that  when  you  go  to  the  Court,  you  go  to 
business.  Intrigue  !  It  is  the  kernel  of  Court  existence  ;  the 
moment  she  set  foot  in  Versailles,  intrigue  awaited  her.  Du 
Barry,  Richelieu,  D'Aiguillon  were  behind  her;  Choiseul  con- 
fronted her — Choiseul,  the  little  ugly  bright-eyed,  red-haired 
man  with  the  pug-dog  face,  the  venomous,  uncontrollable  tongue, 
ever  ready  for  sarcasms,  ironies,  witticisms ;  "  with  the  nature 
which  knew  not  hate  nor  revenge,  but  only  spite  "  ;  with  the  gay 
easy  manners  which  belonged  to  the  period,  and  served  him  so 
well  as  a  bait  for  popularity — Choiseul,  the  powerful  Minister, 
"  Lord  High  Everything  Else,"  splendid,  sumptuous,  extravagant, 
living  more  like  a  king  than  the  King — Choiseul,  with  his  sister 
at  his  ear,  that  disappointed  candidate  for  the  post  of  favourite, 
Beatrice,  Duchesse  de  Grammont,  deeply  sworn  to  vengeance 
upon  this  upstart  who  was  even  now  (they  said)  intriguing  for 
the  Presentation  which  would  proclaim  her  mattresse-en-titre.  .  .  . 
The  King  had  already  installed  her  at  Versailles,  had  had 
re-established  the  Royal  communications  with  her  apartments — 
but  surely  it  would  stop  there  ?  Du  Barry  was  resolved  that  it 
should  not  stop  there.  Presented  Jeanne  should  be,  and  he 
sought  for  help  at  Court,  quickly  finding  it  in  his  old  ally,  the 
Due  de  Richelieu.  Richelieu  was  Choiseul's  foe,  but,  coureur  de 
femmes  and  little  else,  he  was  a  man  of  straw.  Behind  him 
loomed  the  real  antagonist,  his  nephew,  that  Due  d'Aiguillon 
who  was  the  representative  of  the  reactionary  Party. 

Choiseul  stood  for  the  spirit  of  the  age.  He  belonged  to 
the  Jansenists,  Parliamentarians,  Philosophers,  Encyclopaedists — 
the  party  of  reform  in  Church  and  State.  D'Aiguillon  was  his 
antithesis — champion  of  religious  and  monarchical  authority, 
protector  of  the  Jesuits,  upholder  of  things  as  they  were.  It  was 
a  duel  of  ideas,  a  "civil  war  of  consciences,"  wherein  the  King 
was,  as  it  were,  the  middle  party — though  he  hated  the  Par- 
liaments, indeed,  with  a  deadly  hatred.  All  through  his  reign, 
his  relations  with  them  were  strained  to  breaking-point.     "  The 


JEANNE   DU  BARRY  131 

Will  of  the  Sovereign  is  supreme  " :  on  that  he  took  his  stand. 
D'Aiguillon  was  with  him  there.  But  Louis  was  convinced, 
nevertheless,  that  Choiseul  was  the  only  man  for  France.  The- 
Minister's  prestige  abroad  was  enormous  ;  by  a  judicious  parade 
of  it,  he  had  acquired  such  influence  that  he  felt  himself  perfectly 
secure. 

Into  this  web  stepped  Jeanne  Du  Barry,  totally  ignorant  of 
affairs,  impatient  of  them,  desirous  of  no  connection  with  them — 
but  with  ambitious,  restless  men  behind  her.  She  had  been 
presented  after  interminable  delays — "  the  new  Esther  who  was 
to  replace  Haman  and  deliver  the  people  from  oppression ; " 
she  had  performed  successfully  all  her  duties  as  a  Court  lady ; 
Louis  was  more  infatuated  than  ever.  .' .  .  The  incredible  had 
happened;  Du  Barry's  mistress  and  decoy  was  Queen  of  the 
Left  Hand !  Driven  on  by  his  frantic  sister,  Choiseul — always 
incautious  in  malice — utterly  lost  his  head.  He  entered  on  that 
organized  campaign  of  calumny  which  was  to  destroy  himself, 
not  her.  Instead  of  unmasking  her,  he  chose  the  way  of 
pamphlets,  paragraphs,  pasquinades.  Paris  rang  with  obscene 
songlets  ;  from  every  paper  crept  a  snake  ;  placards  fluttered  on 
the  walls,  the  lamp-posts,  plays  were  acted  at  booths  and  fairs — 
and  Louis  heard  and  saw,  unheeding.  The  mistress  herself  was 
careless,  too.  She  could  not  be  made  to  rage.  Had  not  the 
Lieutenant  of  Police  been  tiresome  enough }  "  Madame,  we 
have  caught  a  rascal  who  sings  scurrilous  songs  about  you : 
what  shall  we  do  with  him  } " 

"  Make  him  sing  them  to  you — and  then  give  him  something 
to  eat!" 

But  there  was  that  d'Aiguillon !  He  was  very  charming, 
very  gallant  (the  songs  of  course  proclaimed  him  as  her  lover), 
very  assiduous — too  assiduous  !  She  was  tutored  unremittingly, 
shown  the  dangers,  shown  the  proper  attitude — worried  to  death, 
in  a  word,  until  at  last  from  Je  m'en  fiche  !  she  was  driven  to  the 
evening-game  with  the  oranges  when,  opposite  the  King  in  her 
radiant  young  beauty,  she  took  the  three  golden  balls,  tossed 
them  in  the  air,  cried  with  a  roguish  glance  from  thQ  yeux  fripons 
of  Choiseul's  ballads  :  "  Saute,  Choiseul !  Saute^  Praslm  I  Vive 
d' Aig7iillon  ! '^     Satiter  le  ministre — if  that  was  the  way  to  do 


132  JEANNE   DU   BARRY 

it,  it  was  quite  amusing.  ...  Or  an  offending  cook  had  been 
dismissed — a  cook  who  looked  a  little  like  the  Minister.  "  Sire, 
fai  renvoye  mon  Choiseul.  Quand renverrez-voiis  le  voire ?"  .  ,  , 
Fun,  if  that  was  all,  if  that  satisfied  them  !  It  was  the  only  way 
she  knew  to  carry  out  the  d'Aiguillon  behests.  She  wanted 
diamonds  and  dresses — not  dismissals.  Let  them  sing  what 
songs  they  liked !     All  was  well ;  why  not  leave  it  alone  ? 

All  was,  indeed,  astonishingly  well.  The  freezing  attitude 
of  the  Court  ladies  was  breaking  down  ;  the  men  had  always 
been  ready  to  be  kind ;  she  was  learning  how  to  propitiate,  how 
to  win  hearts.  The  Mar^chale  de  Mirepoix,  that  extravagant, 
amusing  old  lady  whom  Louis  liked  so  much,  was  her  friend 
(as  formerly  she  had  been  Madame  de  Pompadour's) — La  petite 
maressah  est  sarmante^  in  the  engaging  lisp  ! — the  Due  de  Tresmes 
had  written  a  gallant  little  note  .  .  .  best  of  all,  she  had  been 
able  to  do  some  kindnesses  through  her  influence  with  the  King. 
That  was  what  she  liked ;  it  pleased  her  warm  heart  and 
her  vanity — her  courtesan's  vanity,  A  pardon,  a  reprieve,  a 
pension,  an  appointment — the  getting  of  anything  like  that 
Jeanne  thoroughly  enjoyed.  To  save  a  poor  girl  from  the 
gallows,  to  obtain  a  little  pension  for  la  petite  maressale^  to  help 
a  good-looking,  bashful  light-horseman  {^^  Ah !  mon  chevau- 
ISgerT')  who  lost  his  head  for  an  instant  at  first  sight  of  our 
beauty,  "  in  a  white  dress  with  wreaths  of  roses  on  it " — to  help 
him  get  a  pardon  for  his  deserter  .  .  .  that  is  our  way  of  exer- 
cising influence  !  We  love  to  dispense  favours,  see  happy  faces, 
hear  eager  thanks.  That  chevaii-Uger  will  not  ask  us  for  any- 
thing more,  and  we  wish  he  would.  We  dub  him  Monsieur  qui 
ne  demande  pas,  and  say,  with  a  pout,  to  d'Aiguillon,  "Are  all 
your  regiment  like  that  ? "  "  Assuredly  not,"  answers  d'Aiguillon, 
and  the  room  rings  with  laughter.  That  is  right — laughter, 
laughter !  .  .  .  But  these  intrigues,  these  dismissals — these  dull 
Jansenists  and  Jesuits  !  If  d'Aiguillon  and  Maupeou — Maupeou 
is  the  Chancellor — would  but  leave  us  in  peace  to  laugh !  But 
they  will  not,  so  we  must  get  rid  as  quickly  as  we  can  of  that 
tracasserie  de  Choiseul.  We  show  the  Minister  plainly,  then,  that 
we  resent  him.  When  he  is  our  partner  at  whist,  we  shrug 
lovely  shoulders,  pout   lovely  lips ;    we  do  our  best   to  satisfy 


JEANNE  DU  BARRY  133 

these  relentless  men  who  tutor  us — and  at  last,  hastened  by  the 
first  shadow  of  mistrust  in  Louis'  mind  for  Choiseul's  foreign 
policy,  the  blow  fell.  On  the  24th  December,  1770,  the  First 
Minister  received  a  lettre  de  cachet  from  the  King,  ordering  him  to 
resign  all  his  posts,  and  retire  to  Chanteloup  till  further  orders. 

No  one  less  elated  at  this  fall  than  Jeanne  Du  Barry.  With- 
out d'Aiguillon,  "  who  pestered  her,  pursued  her,  importuned  her 
day  and  night  with  his  ambition  and  his  hatreds,"  she  would 
willingly  have  patched  up  any  kind  of  a  truce  with  Choiseul. 
She  would  indeed  have  liked  him  if  he  had  given  her  a  chance  ; 
she  had  done  her  very  best  to  be  friends.  That  Choiseul  re- 
pulsed her  to  his  own  downfall,  might  have  an  air  of  nobility, 
though  never  of  sagacity,  if  we  did  not  know  that  in  after-years 
he  solicited  her  through  a  friend  to  obtain  him  a  larger  pension. 
She  did  obtain  it ;  she  threw  herself  heart  and  soul  into  the 
affair — and  he,  in  his  Memoirs,  still  has  nothing  but  spiteful, 
virtuous  indignation  for  her  name.  As  M.  Vatel  remarks,  "He 
succeeded  in  proving  that  there  is  a  creature  infinitely  more 
loathsome  than  a  courtesan — and  that  is  a  courtier." 


For  the  rest,  it  was  all  smiles,  gaiety,  extravagance.  She 
became  a  patroness  of  the  arts  like  Pompadour ;  she  imitated 
Pompadour  in  everything.  Only  that  great  lady's  hobby  had 
been  graven  gems,  and  Madame  Du  Barry's, — after  "  la  toilette^ 
sa  grande  affaire  et  sa  grande  ruine  " — was  porcelain.  She  filled 
Luciennes  with  exquisite  things,  and  everywhere  reigned  and 
triumphed  porcelain.^  Luciennes  was  the  country-house  given 
her  by  Louis — "  la  petite  maison  des  petits-arts  du  dix-huitikme 
sikle"  Porcelain, silver,  gold — for  soon  she  took  a  fancy  to  have 
her  dinner-service  all  in  gold,  with  jasper-handles.  Then  a  toilet- 
service  in  gold  was  ordered,  but  the  expense  was  so  enormous 
that  she  was  obliged  to  give  up  that  caprice — and  in  her  accounts 
we  find  an  indemnity  to  the  jeweller  for  "a  gold  toilet-service 
begun  and  not  finished."  And  diamonds,  laces,  Drouais'  portraits, 
sumptuous  liveries  for  her  servants,  green  parroquets,  every  folly, 
every  luxury — "  the  best-treated  kept-woman  in  the  kingdom," 
her  only  crumpled  rose-leaf  that  haughty,  insulting  demeanour 


134  JEANNE  DU  BARRY 

of  Marie- Antoinette,  young  Dauphiness,  who  when  she  first  came 

to  Court   had   asked,  in   her  innocence,  "What   Madame    Du 

Barry's  special  function  was  ? " 

"  Madame,"  said  a  tactful  courtier — "  to  amuse  the  King." 
"  Then  I  swear  that  I  will  take  her  place,"  the  girl  had  cried, 

merrily.     But  she  learnt  ere  long  Madame  Du  Barry's  function, 

and   could  never   be  coaxed   or  coerced  even  into  a  show  of 

tolerance. 

Warm-hearted   careless  Jeanne  was   sorry,  made   many  an 

effort — no  }     The  Dauphiness  will  not  speak  to  us  ?     Zui  alors  ! 

We  have  everything  else. 


All  that  for  six  years.  And  then  ?  ...  It  is  April,  1774. 
There  is  an  evil  augury  for  April  in  the  Almanack  deLUge,  "  A 
great  lady  playing  a  part  at  Court  will  cease  to  play  it." 

"  jfe  voudrais  bien  passer  ce  vilain  mots  d^avril !  " 

On  the  27th,  His  Majesty  falls  ill  while  visiting  us  at  Petit 
Trianon.  He  is  taken  home  to  Versailles  next  day,  though  we 
would  fain  have  kept  him  and  he  would  fain  have  stayed  in  the 
light,  airy  rooms.  .  .  .  What  is  it  1  It  is  small-pox — caught, 
history  knows  not  surely  how,  though  many  a  tale  is  told.  On 
the  4th  of  May  we  are  sent  for.  We  issue  from  the  sick-room, 
"  with  visible  trouble  in  our  visage."  What  is  it  we  have  heard 
from  those  frightful,  dying  lips  1  "  It  is  time,  Madame,  that  we 
should  leave  one  another."  .  .  .  Ah,  he  has  always  been  so  ! 
Was  not  the  Chateauroux  driven  away  that  time  of  the  fever  at 
Metz  ?  Did  not  even  the  Pompadour  tremble  after  the  attack  of 
Damiens  }  For  Louis  has  a  conscience — "  believes  at  least  in  a 
Devil."  He  is  resolved  to  "  make  the  amende  honorable "  *  to 
God.     We  must  go. 

On  the  5th  of  May,  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  Madame 
Du  Barry  left  Versailles  with  the  Duchesse  d' Aiguillon,  and  retired 
to  Rueil,  the  d'Aiguillon  country-house,  three  leagues  distant. 
On  the  9th,  the  King  died.     Shortly  afterwards,  she  received  a 

*  "  As  the  Abb^  Georgel,  in  words  that  stick  to  one,  expresses  it." 
(Carlyle). 


I 


JEANNE  DU    BARRY  135 

lettte  de  cachet^  ordering  her  to  retire  to  a  convent.    "  Shut  are  the 
Royal  palace-gates  for  evermore." 


Little  remains,  except  the  last  great  amazement.  She  never 
returned  to  Court.  After  a  period  of  banishment  from  its  very 
neighbourhood,  she  was  permitted  to  live  for  the  rest  of  her  life 
at  her  beloved  Luciennes.  Extravagant  as  ever,  generous  as  ever, 
there  she  spent  her  days,  the  Lady  Bountiful  of  her  home — the 
Diamond-Queen,  as  it  were,  of  Europe !  She  had  two  lovers — 
the  first,  Henry  Seymour,  a  married  Englishman  ;  the  second,  the 
Due  de  Brissac,  faithful  unto  death. 

The  affair  with  Henry  Seymour  was  short  and  poignant ;  her 
letters  to  him  remain — the  most  touching,  timid,  gentle.  ...  His 
love  died  first : — 

"  It  is  idle  to  speak  of  my  affection  for  you — ^you  know  it. 
But  what  you  do  not  know  is  my  pain.  You  have  not  deigned 
to  reassure  me  about  that  which  most  matters  to  my  heart.  And 
so  I  must  believe  that  my  ease  of  mind,  my  happiness,  are  of  little 
importance  to  you.  I  am  sorry  that  I  should  have  to  allude  to 
them — it  is  for  the  last  time."  .  .  .  Strange — to  think  of  the  Du 
Barry  we  have  known,  writing  that  letter  !  But  the  pain  was  not 
too  long.  The  exquisite  creature,  more  lovely  than  ever — Cosway 
painted  her  miniature  when  she  went  to  England  not  long  before 
her  death,  "  perhaps  the  most  adorable  image  we  have  of  her  "... 
she  was  soon  all  de  Brissac's,  as  he  was  all  hers.  Their  love 
ended  only  with  their  lives.  And  both  lives  ended  on  the 
scaffold.  Surely  Fate  was  sworn  to  the  Improbable  when  she 
dealt  the  cards  to  Jeanne  B^cu  !  The  Revolution  overtook  the 
lovers.  De  Brissac  went  first.  It  was  said  that  the  mob  threw 
his  head  into  the  drawing-room  at  Luciennes  before  her  feet.  .  .  . 
That  was  in  1792.  Her  hour  came  in  1793.  "  They  snatched 
her,  not  only  as  ex-harlot  of  a  whilom  Majesty,  and  therefore 
suspect ;  but  as  having  furnished  the  emigrants  with  money " — 
as  cherishing  the  memory  of  Louis  Capet,  as  wearing  a  medallion 
of  the  thrice-accursed  Pitt.  .  .  .  Already  much  had  happened. 
Her  old  enemies,  the  former  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness,  had  gone 
before  her.     She  had  had  the  chance,  in  the  hour  of  danger,  to 


136  JEANNE   DU   BARRY 

prove  to  Marie-Antoinette  how  little  revengeful  was  "  the  most 
foolish  and  impertinent  creature  imaginable."  She  had  succoured 
wounded  soldiers  of  the  Queen,  she  had  offered  to  restore  to  the 
Crown  her  darling  home,  Luciennes. 

Ah !  she  was  generous-hearted.  But  she  was  not  proud- 
hearted.  We  will  not  spell  out  that  rending  story — the  lament- 
able, many-witnessed  scene  of  her  struggles,  her  shrieks,  her 
"  rush  to  the  edge  of  the  scaffold,"  the  hideous  dragging  sound  of 
her  feet  on  the  boards  as  they  pulled  her  backwards,  her  cry, 
"  Help,  help !  "  {A  mot !) — when  there  was  none  to  help,  neither 
any  to  pity.  .  .  .  Yet  the  crowd  had  been  stirred  for  an  instant. 
"  They  were  so  accustomed  to  noble  deaths  that,  for  the  first 
time,  watching  this  one,  it  occurred  to  them  that  here  was  a 
woman  going  to  be  killed"  But  the  instant  passed  :  the  crowd 
was  soon  itself  again.  .  .  . 

So  fell  the  lovely,  empty  head. 


"  Thou  unclean,  yet  unmalignant,  not  unpitiable  thing ! 
What  a  course  was  thine :  from  that  first  truckle-bed  (in  Joan  of 
Arc's  country)  where  thy  mother  bore  thee,  with  tears,  to  an  un- 
named father :  forward,  through  lowest  subterranean  depths,  and 
over  highest  sunlit  heights,  of  Harlotdom  and  Rascaldom — to  the 
guillotine-axe,  which  shears  away  thy  vainly-whimpering  head ! 
Rest  there  uncursed;  only  buried  and  abolished:  what  else 
befitted  thee  ? " 


i 


THE     ROYAL     LADY 


HENRIETTE   DOKLEANS 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING    BY  JOS.   BROWN 


HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

D'ANGLETERRE 

("  MADAME  ") 
1644-1670 

AN  elusive  figure,  this  of  Henrietta  Stuart,  called  "of 
England,"  because  she  was  so  much  more  of  France ! 
Her  beauty  was  the  theme  of  two  great  Courts — yet  it 
remains  the  secret  of  her  time.  Impossible  for  modern  eyes  to 
perceive  it.  We  see  a  thin  pale  interesting  face,  a  little  slender 
unimpressive  figure.  ..."  That  is  Madame,"  we  murmur  doubt- 
fully, remembering  the  chorus  of  enthusiasm  which  rent  the  air 
of  the  French  and  English  Courts  whenever  she  appeared. 
Madame  de  Motteville  comes  to  our  rescue.  "  Her  beauty 
was  not  of  the  most  perfect  kind,  but  her  charming  manners 
made  her  very  attractive  ; "  and  an  anonymous  contemporary 
gives  us,  in  a  phrase,  the  magic  word  to  invoke  her : — "  On 
dirait  quelle  demande  le  cceur"  .  .  .  Her  charm  was  supreme. 
That  was  the  secret  of  her  unbounded  popularity — she  is 
perhaps  the  most  popular  woman  of  whom  history  has  to  tell. 
Adoration  was  part  of  the  air  she  breathed.  "  One  would 
have  said  that  her  spirit  possessed  her  body."  There,  no  doubt, 
is  the  reason  why  her  pictures  fail  to  reveal  her.  Lovely  as  was 
her  colouring,  with  that  skin  like  "  rose-o'ershadowed  lilies,"  that 
golden-red  hair,  those  deep  blue  eyes  and  flower-like  lips,  it  was 
her  expression  and  her  atmosphere  which  captured  every  heart, 
together  with  that  infinite  gentleness  which  made  her  friend, 
Madame  de  La  Fayette,  say  of  her  last  hours  that  "  Madame  fut 
douce  envers  la  mort  comme  elleV^tait  envers  tout  le  moftde," 

139 


140  HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

Yet  her  husband,  who  began  by  being  in  love  with  her,  loved 
her,  in  his  own  unchivalrous  words,  "  no  longer  than  a  fortnight." 
His  heart  was  indeed  not  worth  the  keeping,  but  the  strange 
thing  is  that  Henrietta  Stuart  lost  men's  hearts  often.  The  men 
who  were  never  in  love  with  her,  on  the  contrary,  never  altered  in 
their  devotion.  Her  intelligence  was  of  exquisite  quality ;  she 
was  a  fine  critic  of  literature,  a  diplomatist  of  the  highest  order — 
and  a  woman  with  whom,  nevertheless,  we  feel  perpetually  angry. 
.  .  Elusive,  in  a  word ;  and,  oddly  enough,  her  life  began  with 
flight !  She  was  born  *  "  by  a  Queen  in  peril  to  the  sound  of 
arms  "  ;  scarcely  a  fortnight  later,  her  mother,  Henrietta-Maria, 
Queen  of  Charles  I.,  fled  (leaving  the  child  behind),  from 
England  to  France,  her  native  land;  a  year  later,  Exeter  was 
again  invested,  and  the  baby-Princess,  with  her  devoted  Lady 
Dalkeith,  was  kept  there  through  the  siege.  When  the  city 
surrendered,  she  was  taken  to  Salisbury,  thence  to  Oatlands,  by 
order  of  the  Parliament — and  from  Oatlands,  Lady  Dalkeith  in 
her  turn  fled  to  France.  She  disguised  herself  as  a  poor  woman  ; 
little  Henrietta,  to  her  vast  indignation,  was  dressed  as  a  boy  and 
called  Pierre.  In  her  baby-language,  all  along  the  Dover  Road, 
she  insisted  that  she  was  not  Pierre,  but  "  the  Princess,"  and  that 
these  rags  were  not  her  real  clothes.  Luckily  no  one  understood 
her,  so  Lady  Dalkeith  reached  Paris  and  Henrietta-Maria  in 
safety. 

A  sufficiently  romantic  beginning — yet  Henrietta,  when  she 
dictated  her  memoirs  to  Madame  de  La  Fayette,  ignored  entirely 
her  early  life.  "  On  dirdit  que  cette  jolie  fenime  se  croyait  nie  le 
jour  oil  elle  fut  aim^e  pour  la  premikre  fois  !  "  \  That  was  when 
the  Duke  of  Buckingham  saw  her  in  London.  She  was  sixteen, 
already  betrothed  to  "Monsieur," — otherwise  Philippe,  Due 
d'Orl^ans,  only  brother  of  Louis  XIV. ;  and  had  come  to 
England  with  her  mother  on  business  connected  with  this 
alliance.  The  country  went  mad  about  her.  Two  other  Royal 
suitors  had  sent  their  envoys  to  Charles  II.,  who,  however,  pre- 
ferred  the    French    alliance  to  any  other;    and   Buckingham 

♦  At  Exeter,  in  June,  1644. 

t  M.  Anatole  France.     Introduction  to  his  Edition  of  Madame  de  La 
Fayette's  Histoij'e  de  Madame  Henriette  d^Angleierre,    (1882.) 


HENRIEITE   D'ORLEANS  141 

hastened  to  add  himself  to  the  list  of  her  conquests.  He  had 
been  a  suitor  of  her  sister  Mary,  the  widowed  Princess  of  Orange 
—but  when  Henrietta  arrived,  he  fell  so  deeply  in  love  with  her 
that  he  almost  lost  his  reason.  She  was  not  disturbed  ;  we  do 
not  hear  that  she  encouraged  him.  Buckingham  was  handsome, 
yet  he  somehow  had  no  luck  in  love.  With  Henrietta,  he  never 
seems  to  have  made  any  way  at  all,  although  she  was  a  coquette 
of  the  most  untiring  order.  But  her  goiit  de  galanierie  was  all 
from  the  head,  for  the  imagination  ;  her  folly  stopped  short  ever 
in  a  fright  at  what  the  world  might  say,  but  in  a  fright  at  nothing 
better  than  that.  She  was  never  afraid  of  herself,  nor  of  where 
herself  might  lead  her :  one  bogey  she  had,  and  one  only — Public 
Opinion. 

Exquisite  as  she  was,  we  miss  in  her  some  quality  which  far 
more  faulty  women  have  possessed :  some  vital  impulse,  some 
power  of  deep  feeling.  .  .  .  The  Court-lady,  the  Queen  and 
High- Priestess  of  Convention — that  was  what  essentially  she  was, 
yet  she  never  accepted  herself  in  the  part ;  rather,  she  seemed 
incessantly  to  try  how  far  she  could  go  without  losing  caste,  in 
any  other.  And  when  the  limit  had  been  reached  and  people 
were  talking — at  once  we  find  her  on  her  knees  to  somebody  to 
help  her  out !  "  Twy-natured  is  no-natured "  ;  with  Henrietta 
Stuart,  in  truth,  we  are  sometimes  tempted  to  think  that  Nature 
had  nothing  to  do.  The  Court  formed  her,  possessed  her. 
"  There's  nothing  in  the  world  like  etiquette  "  :  deep  in  her  heart 
that  maxim  lay,  for  all  her  follies,  for  all  her  gracious  friendships 
and  condescensions.  The  Stuart  glamour,  the  Stuart  lightness, 
the  Stuart  melancholy :  she  inherited  them  all.  Charles  II. 
escaped  the  melancholy ;  Charles  I.,  the  lightness  ;  she  had  both. 
A  ballet  could  distract  her  when  her  only  little  son  was  ill — a 
ballet  entered  into  by  the  King's  desire.  For  the  King  came 
first.  She  was  the  courtier  before  she  was  the  mother.  She  paid 
for  her  courtier's  life  with  her  own. 


The  child  began  her  Court-triumphs  at  nine.  Her  mother — 
la  reijie  malheureuse,  as  she  named  herself  after  the  tragedy  of 
1649 — had  brought  her  up  austerely  enough.     Henrietta-Maria 


142  HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

was  the  daughter  of  Henry  of  Navarre,  the  People's  King :  her 
daughter  was  taught  simplicity,  even  humility — she  used  to  wait 
hand  and  foot  upon  the  nuns  at  her  mother's  Convent  of  the 
Filles-Sainte-Marie  at  Chaillot.  The  external  graces  of  this 
early  discipline  survived  in  her  consummate  courtesy,  and  that 
gentleness  which  is  the  key-note  to  every  description  of  her. 
The  Stuart  pride  was,  in  truth,  too  immense  to  be  displayed  in 
any  other  fashion.  They  had  the  secret — to  such  a  degree  that, 
by  comparison,  no  other  family  seems  to  have  it — of  making 
good-breeding  romantic.  The  gesture  of  a  Stuart  hand,  stretched 
out  for  kissing,  had  an  air  for  ever  uncaptured  by  other 
Royalties :  courtiers  bent,  one  imagines,  with  something  of  a 
lover's  thrill.  .  .  .  Literally,  the  Stuarts  were  the  Royal  Idea. 

Married  at  seventeen  to  the  only  brother  of  Louis  XIV., 
Henrietta  Stuart  became  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  French- 
woman. Monsieur  began  by  being  much  in  love.  He  was 
something  of  a  horror.  Extremely  good-looking,  there  yet  was 
a  harmful  disquieting  atmosphere  about  him,  a  suggestion  of 
corruptness — only  too  well  affirmed  in  later  life,  and  even  then 
displaying  itself  through  a  horrible  fancy  for  dressing  in  women's 
clothes  whenever  he  possibly  could.  He  would  have  worn  petti- 
coats to  Mass  or  to  the  theatre,  if  his  rank  had  permitted  ;  he 
could  wear  them  at  balls — and  he  did,  dancing  the  minuet  with 
all  the  airs  and  graces  of  a  fine  lady.  He  was  incredibly  puerile, 
spiteful,  paltry — he  had  been  brought  up  to  be  incapable  of 
affairs,  surrounded  purposely  by  vicious  and  detestable  com- 
panions, but  Louis  XIV.  had  had  the  same  evil  fortune,  and  had 
managed  to  escape  its  worst  consequences.  A  more  ill-judged 
union  than  that  of  this  Prince  with  Henrietta  Stuart  was  never 
made.  She  was  not  a  woman  who  influenced  men.  Fastidious, 
cold,  and  frivolous,  she  endured — she  did  not  seek  to  alter. 
Detestable  he  was,  and  she  left  him  so.  He  was  very  jealous — 
"  more  of  her  mind  than  of  her  body " — and  she  gave  him 
incessant  cause  for  jealousy,  not  only  with  her  love-affairs  but 
with  her  friendships — her  friendship  with  Louis  XIV.  above  all. 

Louis  had  not  admired  her  in  early  days.  She  had  been 
suggested  as  a  Queen  for  him,  but  he  had  shown  so  plainly  his 
indifference   that  the  project  had  never  taken  shape.     In  her 


HENRIETTE   D^ORLEANS  143 

extreme  youth,  she  was  slender  to  emaciation — "the  Bones  of 
the  Holy  Innocents  "  was  the  King's  naughty  name  for  her.    But 
when,  after  the  visit  to  England,  she  blossomed  out  into  a  beauty, 
and  enchanted  the  Court  by  her  charm  and  her  delicious  dancing, 
he  suddenly  perceived  that  his  sister-in-law  was  worthy  of  a  lost 
head — lost  his  accordingly,  and  set  the  whole  place  agog.     She 
acquiesced  ;  it  was  good  etiquette  to  be  admired  by  His  Majesty. 
But  soon  enough  her   Inevitable  happened.     Anne  of  Austria 
showed   displeasure,  and   Henrietta  was   instantly  au  dhespoir. 
What  should  they  do — she  and  Louis — to  prove  their  innocence 
(for   innocent  they  were)   in   such   a   way  that   no   one  could 
mistake  }    The  way  they  chose  was  far  from  admirable.     Among 
Henrietta's  ladies  was  a  very  young  and  very  lovely  girl — Louise 
de  La  Valliere,  malleable,  timid,  entirely  guileless.     Of  her  it 
was  agreed  to  make  a  blind.     The  King  was  to  pay  her  marked 
attention,  and   thus   distract  the  gossips   from  the   truth.     But 
Louise   de   La   Valliere,  unwitting   tool   of  intrigue,  was   soon 
revenged  of  an  injury  which  she  never  even  suspected.    Credulous 
and  incredulous  at  once,  she  listened  to  the  Royal  wooing  with 
a  gentle,  trembling   amazement   which   won   the   Royal   heart. 
Henrietta  found  herself  taking  in  reality  that  second  place  which 
she  was   to  have   feigned   to   take — and,   not   unnaturally,  she 
resented  it.     There  was  pretext  for  resentment,  it  is  true,  for  the 
La  Valliere  affair  became  an  open  scandal  ;  but  no  clear-sighted 
reader  of  the  Court-gossip  can  miss  the  note  of  personal  anger  in 
Madame's  attitude  towards  the  girl.     It  was  then  that  Madame 
first  became  entangled  with  the  Comtesse  de  Soissons  (Olympe 
Mancini),  a  woman  whose  name  is  synonymous  with  treachery. 
She  had  been  an  early  mistress  of  the  King,  and  though  she  had 
been  twice  replaced  and  had  never  loved  him,  she  still  cherished 
an  impotent  ambition,  born  of  vanity — the  ambition  to  rule  at 
Court.      Her    lover  was    now   that    irresistible    scoundrel,    the 
Marquis  de  Vardes,  "  the  very  match  for  her ; "  and  Vardes,  for 
some  inscrutable  reason  of  his  own,  had  designs  upon  Madame. 
.  .  .  We  have  entered  the  repugnant  labyrinth  of  Court  intrigue 
— a   region  of  incessant   and   futile  activity,  where   no   end   is 
pursued  but  that  of  malice.     In  its  stifling  atmosphere  we  will 
not  linger.     Enough  that  Madame  lent  herself  to  the  jealousy  of 


144  HENRIETTE   D^ORLEANS 

Olympe  Mancini,  and  arranged  for  her  an  interview  with  the 
Queen — Marie-Ther^se — wherein  that  unhappy  lady's  eyes  should 
be  opened  to  the  truth.  Marie-Therese  had  for  long  been 
miserable ;  she  knew  that  her  husband's  faith  with  her  was 
broken,  but  she  knew  not  certainly  whom  to  accuse.  ^^En 
attendant^  elk  detestait  Madame  !  "  And  Madame,  stung  by  this 
injustice  and  by  the  mortification  of  the  whole  episode,  keenly 
desired  that  the  Queen  should  know  the  real  state  of  affairs.  .  .  . 
That  was  natural  enough ;  yet  there  is  nothing  in  Henrietta's 
conduct,  from  first  to  last  in  this  affair,  which  awakens  any  sort 
of  sympathy.  She  had  pushed  a  young  and  innocent  girl  into 
the  King's  arms  to  save  herself  from  her  bogey.  Public  Opinion  ; 
and  now,  humiliated  though  relieved,  she  desired  to  complete  her 
work  and  her  own  salvation  by  betraying  her  to  the  Queen. 
And  she  chose  for  her  instruments  the  two  basest  creatures  of 
the  Court.  That  was  stupid,  indeed !  For  all  her  qualities  of 
mind,  she  lacked  that  mere  intuition  which  saves  less  brilliant 
women  from  the  tracasseries  with  which  she  was  for  ever 
surrounded.  If  she  cleared  herself  now  from  one  kind  of  com- 
ment, she  exposed  herself  at  the  same  moment  to  another.  The 
Marquis  de  Vardes  involved  her  in  a  web  of  petty  scandal  which 
it  would  be  idle  to  examine  closely ;  he  almost  succeeded  in 
embroiling  her  and  Charles  11.  with  the  King,  for  she  had  had 
the  incredible  folly  to  show  her  brother's  most  private  letters  to 
him,  and  to  let  him  know  her  own  most  private  feelings  for  that 
strange  personage,  Armand,  Comte  de  Guiche,  with  whom  she 
had  the  nearest  approach  to  a  lasting  love-affair  which  ever 
entered  her  life. 

We  have  spoken  of  her  goM  de  galanterie.  Galanterie,  in 
seventeenth-century  speech,  ("which  is  almost,"  M.  Anatole 
France  tells  us,  "a  dead  language,")  meant  something  quite 
different  from  its  more  usual  meaning.  It  meant  then  a  gay, 
polished,  agreeable  way  of  doing  and  saying  things  ;  it  was  an 
art  sedulously  cultivated  by  those  who  had  the  talent,  an  ceuvre 
d'esprit  not  to  be  spoiled  by  coarse  realities.  Madame  was 
always  ready  for  this  amusement.  She  would  have  liked  a  bout 
of  it  with  the  King,  but  he  was  made  of  the  stuff  at  which 
galanterie  shuddered  :  "  coarse  reality  "  was  to  him  essential  in  a 


HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS  145 

love-affair.  Thus  it  was  that  he  so  quickly  broke  away  from 
Madame's  influence.  The  Comte  de  Guiche,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  the  true  type  she  needed.  She  was  conquered  by  "  his 
proud  bearing,  like  a  paladin  of  old  renown,"  the  romantic  airs 
which  were  the  dress,  so  to  speak,  of  the  part.  He  knew  every 
move  in  the  game,  and  played  it  with  his  whole  soul.  "  He  was 
full  of  audacity,  and  yet  of  reverence  ; "  he  could  invent  the  most 
amazing  situations,  the  most  devious-adventurous  ways  of  meeting, 
the  maddest  disguises — and,  above  all,  he  was  an  untiring  letter- 
writer  !  This  was  indispensable  ;  and  the  more  difficult  of  com- 
prehension the  letters  were,  the  finer  was  the  galanterie  they 
displayed.  De  Guiche  excelled  in  this  sort.  Madame  read  the 
cryptic  epistles  with  devout  admiration,  "  and  from  time  to  time, 
no  doubt,  found  means  to  raise  her  knight  from  the  depths  of  his 
despair." 

"  Est-ce  Id  tout  ?  ye  le  crois"  says  M.  France — for  de  Guiche 
expressed  a  profound  distaste  for  the  realities  of  love.  .  .  .  There 
was  gossip,  indeed,  on  this  score.  "  Sa  femme  avait  ^ti  mariee 
sans Petre"  observes  Madame  de  Motteville.  "  These  things  may 
not  be  true,"  comments  M.  France,  "  but  there  are  some  men  of 
whom  they  are  never  said — Henri  IV.,  for  example  !  De  Guiche 
must  have  in  some  way  given  the  impression."  No  doubt  he  did, 
for  he  was  intensely  affected,  intensely  vain  :  "  he  lived  for  amour- 
propre  ;  he  died  for  it,  too  " — and  died  heroically,  for  a  brilliant 
bravery  was  part  of  the  Gentle  Art  of  Gallantry. 

Such  a  cavalier,  all  airs  and  graces  and  devotion,  compared 
but  too  favourably  with  Henrietta's  lamentable  husband,  who, 
with  his  peevish,  spiteful  humours,  made  her  existence  purgatorial. 
She  escaped  from  his  persecution  to  the  intoxicating  atmosphere 
of  Court  flatteries  ;  and  she  found  there  besides,  awaiting  only 
her  acceptance,  the  devotion  of  the  brilliant  and  notoriously 
fastidious  Armand  de  Guiche.*    Secret  meetings,  cunning  maids- 

*  This  was  in  1662  after  the  birth  of  her  first  child,  a  daughter  by  whose 
sex  the  mother  was  so  disappointed  that  she  cried,  on  realising  it,  "  Throw 
her  into  the  river."  It  is  difficult  either  to  forget  or  forgive  this  outburst. 
The  child  was  that  Marie-Louise  who,  married  in  1679  to  the  King  of  Spain, 
was  to  die  in  the  flower  of  her  age  (after  ten  years  of  miserable  marriage), 
as  suddenly  and  as  tragically  as  her  mother,  and  with  the  same  rumour  of 
poison  around  her  bed  of  anguish  ! 
L 


146  HENRIETTE  D'ORLEANS 

of-honour,  private  staircases,  concealings  of  the  exquisite  cavalier 
in  sooty  chimneys  ;  Vardes  malignant,  jealous,  and  for  a  time 
triumphant ;  Guiche  high-hearted,  guileless,  and  betrayed ; 
Henrietta,  torn  between  the  attraction  which  both  men  had  for 
her,  but  dominated  by  the  infinitely  stronger  personality  of 
Vardes  ("  She  had  for  Vardes  a  more  natural  feeling  than  she 
had  for  Guiche  ")  .  .  .  here  is  a  typical  love-affair  of  the  Court, 
where  although  the  villain  is  adroit,  it  surely  seems  that  hero  and 
heroine  overplay  the  imbecility  from  of  old  attached  to  their 
roles!  Guiche  was  packed  off  to  the  war  in  Poland,  entirely 
through  the  clever  plotting  of  Vardes,  his  friend  and  confidant. 
The  villain  was  then  master  of  the  situation  and  of  the  Princess, 
who  went  from  folly  to  folly,  surpassing  herself  in  an  avowal  to 
him,  after  news  from  the  war,  that  "  she  now  saw  she  had  cared 
more  for  the  Comte  de  Guiche  than  she  had  ever  known  ! " 
Vardes,  unaccustomed  to  failure  in  "  love,"  swore  to  revenge 
himself — but  the  Comtesse  de  Soissons  intervened.  When  it 
was  a  question  of  treachery,  Olympe  Mancini  was  bound  to  win, 
and  she  won  now.  Wild  with  jealousy,  she  unmasked  her  faith- 
less lover  to  her  rival  Henrietta — and,  at  the  same  moment, 
Guiche  returned  from  the  war.  It  was  June  1664  :  Madame  had 
just  given  birth  to  her  son,  the  Due  de  Valois.  Guiche  felt 
uneasy,  for  she  had  refused  to  see  him  and  had  commissioned 
the  King  to  retrieve  for  her  the  letters  she  had  written  "  Armand  " 
during  his  absence,  and  a  portrait  of  herself  which  she  had  had 
done  for  him.  .  .  .  But  who  was  the  traitor  ?  The  hero's  loyalty 
wavered — could  it  be  his  friend,  his  confidant,  Vardes  }  He 
doubted,  yet  he  heroically  trusted — for  he  gave  to  Vardes  a  letter 
for  Madame,  wherein  all  was  explained  !  Vardes  managed  to 
achieve  an  audience  with  the  Princess,  who  was  not  yet  seeing 
anybody.  He  threw  himself  on  his  knees,  he  wept  and  begged 
for  mercy — if  she  would  act  with  him  in  this  affair,  nothing 
should  ever  be  known.  "  Will  you  read  Guiche's  letter  .? "  asked 
Vardes  at  last.  No !  she  would  not  — "  and  she  did  well  to  refuse, 
for  Vardes  had  already  shown  it  to  the  King,  and  had  told  him 
that  Madame  was  deceiving  him."  In  the  end,  the  help  of 
Louis  XIV.  had  to  be  claimed.  He  cut  the  Gordian  knot  with 
decision — sent  Vardes  to  the  Bastille.     But  it  was  not  enough. 


HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS  147 

The  Bastille,  in  those  days,  was  scarcely  imprisonment  at  all.  A 
second  King's  intervention  was  needful  for  the  ending  of  this 
storm  in  a  tea-cup.  Charles  II.  was  appealed  to,  and  Vardes 
was  finally  exiled  to  his  little  Government  of  Aigues-Mortes, 
"  there  to  meditate  at  his  leisure  on  the  inconvenience  of  over- 
doing impertinence  and  duplicity."  ...  It  was  a  question  of 
Madame's  honour  ?  True.  But — "  deux  amants  d  la  fois  ! " 
Sympathy  and  admiration  are  ludicrously  out  of  place  in  such  an 
episode— yet  some  of  Henrietta's  chroniclers  enjoin  them  on  us 
with  insistence. 

Meanwhile,  Guiche  had  failed  to  see  his  lady,  could  obtain 
from  her  nothing  but  cold,  courteous  messages — so  it  was  plainly 
the  duty  of  a  galant  homme  to  be  in  wild  despair.  He  played 
the  part  with  his  customary  perfection,  and  at  last  Destiny  gave 
him  not  only  his  opportunity,  but  the  ideal  mise-en-sdne  for  it. 
A  masked  ball !  Madame  present,  but  unknown  !  Could  any- 
thing fitter  be  conceived .''  Entering  the  house,  the  lady  meets 
a  mysterious  beau  masque :  she  accepts  the  proffered  arm — 
suddenly  notices  a  maimed  hand.  (Guiche's  fingers  had  been 
partly  shot  off  in  battle.)  He,  on  his  side,  till  then  unconscious, 
recognises  the  familiar  perfume  of  her  hair.  Both  are  struck 
dumb  ;  they  mount  the  stairs  in  silence.  Then — explanations ! 
Madame,  for  the  first  time,  knows  all.  They  are  completely 
reconciled.  But  the  husband  approaches  :  they  must  part.  She 
turns  hastily  to  join  the  incarnation  of  duty,  entangles  her  foot 
in  her  gown,  falls  down  a  flight  of  steps,  Guiche,  Favourite  of 
Destiny,  catches  her  in  his  arms.  .  .  .  All  is  well.  But  no !  for 
the  lady  will  not  see  her  knight  again.  They  are  reconciled,  but 
it  is  over.  Guiche  is  advised  to  leave  the  Court.  He  is  ill  of  a 
fever — incurably  picturesque  fellow! — but  will  not  go  without 
seeing  her  again.  Weak,  romantic,  exquisite,  he  will  disguise 
himself  once  more.  "He  borrowed  the  livery  of  one  of  La 
Valliere's  servants  "  (a  little  stroke  of  irony,  that !),  "  and  stood  in 
this  disguise  in  the  Court-yard  of  the  Palais-Royal,  to  see 
Madame  pass  by  in  her  chair."  He  even  drew  near  and  spoke 
to  her,  but  when  the  moment  came  to  say  farewell,  Guiche — was 
there  ever  such  a  lucky  devil ! — Guiche  fainted  away.     Madame's 

tair  passed  on.     He  never  saw  her  again.  .  .  .  "If  the  manner 


i 


148  HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

of  his  farewell  cost  Madame  a  pang,  she  yet  did  not  see  the  end 
of  this  little  episode  without  relief,"  says  Madame  de  La  Fayette  ; 
and  of  Guiche  we  hear  that  "  eighteen  months  after  Madame's 
death,  he  was  wooing  Madame  de  Brissac.  But  she  dismissed 
him — he  was  too  respectful."  * 

This  then  was  galanterie.  Madame  was  content  with  her 
experience.  Guiche  was  gone,  Vardes  was  gone,  Olympe 
Mancini  was  banished — but  "people  had  talked."  .  .  .  She 
resolved  to  turn  over  a  new  leaf. 

Madame  de  La  Fayette's  book  stops  at  this  farewell  interview. 
It  was  then,  in  1665,  that  the  Princess  said  to  her,  "  Don't  you 
think  that  if  all  the  things  which  have  happened  to  me  were 
written  down,  they  would  make  an  interesting  book  ? "  And 
she  added,  "You  write  well.  Write  this — I'll  give  you  the 
material."  So  the  history  was  begun,  but  was  soon  abandoned. 
Then,  in  1669,  Madame,  sad  and  ailing  and  tormented  by  the 
pestilent  husband,  took  up  the  caprice  again.  They  got  as  far 
as  the  Guiche  farewell — and  there  one  of  them  ceased  for  ever 
to  collaborate.  In  1670,  Madame  de  La  Fayette  resumed  her 
pen  to  write  an  account  of  the  last  hours  of  her  adored  Princess. 
"  The  La  Fayette  book  seems  so  destined  for  the  recounting  of 
love-affairs  that  it  would  naturally  stop  when  they  stopped," 
remarks  M.  Anatole  France.  Madame's  life,  after  1665,  became 
more  serious,  her  thoughts  were  occupied  with  more  important 
things — and  she  herself  becomes  instantly  more  interesting  and 
more  admirable.  When  she  handled  love,  she  handled  it  with 
the  inevitable  clumsiness  which  comes  of  wearing  gloves  ;  she 
was  not  made  for  passion — she  never  felt  it,  and  she  never 
inspired  it.  Friendship,  on  the  contrary,  she  exquisitely  inspired  ; 
and  affection  was  the  mainspring  of  her  existence.  Charles  II.'s 
letters  to  her  bear  always  as  superscription,  "  To  my  dear,  dear 
sister " — for  Chhe  Minette^  as  he  called  her,  was  the  very  core 
of  his  heart.  Louis  XIV.  also  was  brotherly-devoted  to  her, 
though  in  the  later  times  of  perpetual  trouble  with  Monsieur  and 
his  atrocious  intimate,  the  Chevalier  de  Lorraine,  i^' fait  comme 
on  peint  les  anges  "  !)  the  strain  grew  occasionally  very  tense. 
It  was  at  these  times  that  they  loved,  in  M.  France's  fine  irony, 
*  M.  Anatole  France. 


HENRIETTE  D'ORLEANS  149 

"  like  brother  and  sister,  et  meme  tin  peu  moinSy  si  d est  possible  !  " 
Madame  found  him  unsatisfactory ;  she  even  wrote  of  him, 
"  The  King  is  one  of  those  people  who  cannot  make  the 
happiness  of  those  to  whom  he  most  desires  to  be  kind.  His 
mistresses,  as  we  all  know,  have  two  or  three  mortifications  to 
put  up  with  every  week — so  what  can  his  friends  expect  ? " 

That  was  in  April,  1670,  shortly  before  she  made  her  famous 
visit  to  England  as  the  unofficial  Ambassador  of  France.  She 
went  on  May  26th  to  Dover,  for  Monsieur,  intractable  as  ever, 
would  not  let  her  go  to  London  ;  he  was  jealous  of  her  intimate 
and  trusted  position  with  the  two  Kings.  From  Dover,  she 
brought  back  the  Secret  Treaty,  by  which  Charles  bound  him- 
self to  join  Louis  in  the  invasion  of  Holland  and  to  co-operate 
with  him  by  sea  and  land,  in  return  for  large  subsidies  during 
the  war  and  a  share  of  the  spoils.  Charles  also  bound  himself 
to  profess  publicly  the  Roman  Catholic  faith  ;  Louis,  in  return 
for  this  concession,  was  to  pay  down  another  large  sum,  and  in 
case  of  a  resulting  civil  war  to  supply  men  and  more  money. 
This  Treaty  has  been  called  the  Sale  of  England  to  France,  and 
Madame  has  been  blamed  for  her  share  in  the  business.  What- 
ever we  may  think  of  Charles,  it  is  difficult  to  blame  a  Princess 
to  whom  Roman  Catholicism  was  the  one  true  religion,  and  who 
was  far  more  French  than  English  in  everything  except  birth — 
and  half-French  in  that.  Moreover,  the  Stuarts  were  pre- 
destined Roman  Catholics.  The  Duke  of  York,  who  had 
been  brought  up  a  Protestant,  had  long  ago  reverted  to  his 
mother's  faith  ;  Charles  himself  had  secretly  acknowledged  it, 
the  year  before  this  Treaty.  It  was  the  dream  of  Henrietta 
Stuart  to  restore  Catholicism  in  England.  Her  opportunity 
arrived,  and  she  used  it  with  an  exquisite  diplomacy,  breaking 
down  difficulties  and  oppositions  thitherto  believed  insurmount- 
able. ...  Her  stay  in  England  lasted  twenty  days ;  on  June 
15th,  she  came  back  to  receive  her  reward  in  the  gratitude  and 
adulation  of  her  adopted  King.  But  she  came  back  also,  alas ! 
to  the  tormented  family-life — to  a  husband  furious  at  the  punish- 
ment of  his  odious  favourite,  (the  Chevalier  de  Lorraine  had 
been  exiled  from  France  by  Louis  XIV.,)  and,  moreover,  bitterly 
jealous  of  his  wife's  honours.     For  all  her  triumph,  it  was  a  very 


150  HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

pitiful  lady  who  appeared  now  at  Court-festivities.  Her  mother 
was  dead,  her  little  son  had  long  been  dead ;  her  friend,  Daniel 
de  Cosnac,  Bishop  of  Valence,  was  banished  from  Court — she 
was  very  lonely  and  very  ill.  "  She  came  in  to  the  Queen  look- 
ing like  a  dead  person  dressed  up  and  rouged,  and  when  she  was 
gone,  the  Queen  and  I  said  to  one  another,  "  Death  is  written  in 
Madame's  face."  * 

That  was  on  June  26th,  a  Thursday — very  hot.  On  Friday 
she  felt  ill,  and  gave  up,  by  her  doctor's  orders,  her  intention  of 
bathing  in  the  Seine  that  day,  though  she  only  put  it  off  until  the 
morrow.  On  Saturday,  at  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening,  Madame 
de  La  Fayette  arrived  at  Saint- Cloud,  and  found  her  walking  in 
the  garden — it  was  a  glorious  moonlight.  She  felt  ill ;  but  she 
stayed  out  till  twelve.  On  Sunday,  she  confessed  to  feeling  ill  and 
miserable — "  cross  "  she  said ;  but  "  her  crossness  would  have 
been  the  good-humour  of  anyone  else,  tant  elle  avait  de  douceur 
naturelle!'  "  I'm  not  so  bad  when  I  can  talk  to  you,"  she  con- 
tinued ;  "  but  I'm  so  tired  of  all  the  rest — I  can't  bear  them  ! " 
...  So  the  day  went  by :  she  dined,  and  after  dinner  lay  down 
among  cushions  placed  on  the  floor — a  habit  of  hers — with  her 
head  on  Madame  de  La  Fayette's  knees.  Looking  down  at 
her  thus,  that  lady  was  struck  by  the  terrible  alteration  in  her 
features — so  great  that  when  she  woke,  even  Monsieur  noticed 
it.  Soon  afterwards,  she  asked  for  a  glass  of  iced  chicory-water. 
Her  lady-in-waiting  handed  it  to  her.  She  drank — and  instantly 
pressed  her  hand  to  her  side,  crying,  "  Oh,  such  a  pain  !  I  can't 
bear  it  ...  I  am  poisoned !  "  The  terrible  anguish  continued  ; 
she  had  to  be  put  to  bed.  The  Court-doctors  were  sent  for; 
they  said  it  was  "  an  ordinary  colic."  But  she  exclaimed  that  it 
was  far  more  serious  than  they  thought,  she  was  going  to  die, 
and  they  must  send  for  her  confessor.  Monsieur  was  by  her 
bed  ;  she  embraced  him  and  said  with  all  her  gentleness,  "  Ah, 
you  love  me  no  more — for  long  you  have  not  loved  me.  It  is 
unjust :  I  have  never  failed  you."  Monsieur  seemed  deeply 
touched,  but  he  said  nothing.  ...  All  at  once  she  insisted  that 
they  should  examine  what  she  had  drunk — it  was  certainly  poison, 
and  they  must  bring  her  an  antidote.  Monsieur  acquiesced 
•  Mademoiselle  de  Montpensier. 


HENRIETTE  D^ORLEANS  151 

composedly.  Two  of  her  ladies  drank  the  same  chicory-water 
from  the  same  cup  before  her  eyes,  and  several  antidotes  were 
tried,  but  they  only  made  her  worse.  She  then  fell  into  a  kind 
of  stupor  which  they  audibly  hoped  was  a  relief  to  her,  but  she 
said,  "No — it  was  merely  that  she  no  longer  had  the  strength 
to  cry  out,  though  she  was  suffering  as  much  as  ever." 

She  was  certain  that  she  was  dying,  and  Monsieur,  infected 
by  her  conviction,  grew  uneasy  ;  but  the  doctors  insisted  that 
there  was  no  danger.  The  cure  of  Saint-Cloud  arrived ;  she 
confessed  to  him,  then  talked  in  a  low  voice  to  her  husband. 
Two  more  Court-physicians  soon  swelled  the  throng  in  her 
room  :  "  On  our  life,  there  is  no  danger,"  they  averred — and  the 
sufferer  groaned  from  her  pillows  that  they  were  mistaken.  .  .  . 
Night  was  now  come,  and  her  attendants  murmured  all  around 
her  that  she  was  better.  "  That  is  so  little  the  case,"  she  said, 
"  that  if  I  were  not  a  Christian,  I  should  kill  myself,  so  desperate 
is  my  suffering.  We  must  not  wish  any  one  ill,  but  I  do  wish 
that  the  doctors  could  feel  for  one  moment  what  /  am  feeling,  so 
as  to  have  some  idea  of  my  anguish."  A  light  was  held  near 
her  eyes,  and  Monsieur  asked  if  it  worried  her.  "Oh  no! 
nothing  worries  me  any  more.  I  shan't  be  alive  to-morrow 
morning ;  you'll  see ! "  They  gave  her  some  soup — but  it 
redoubled  her  agonies. 

At  half-past  ten  the  King  arrived.  By  this  time,  even  the 
Court-physicians  were  getting  uneasy.  "  She  is  in  great  danger  ; 
she  must  have  the  Last  Sacraments."  "  But  I  never  heard,"  said 
the  King,  "  of  a  woman  being  allowed  to  die  like  this  without 
any  attempt  to  save  her ! "  They  maintained  that  the  only 
thing  to  do  was  to  wait  and  see.  Louis  told  her  this  :  she 
shrugged  and  said  that  she  supposed  she  must  die  according  to 
etiquette,  "The  first  news  you  will  hear  in  the  morning,"  she 
went  on,  "  will  be  of  my  death.  Kiss  me,  Sire,  for  the  last  time. 
Oh,  do  not  weep  for  me — you  will  distress  me.  Sire.  .  .  .  You 
are  losing  a  faithful  servant,  who  has  always  feared  the  loss  of 
your  favour  more  than  death."  The  King's  heart  was  so  torn 
that  he  could  not  utter  a  word ;  he  was  obliged  to  withdraw. 
Madame  de  La  Fayette  then  asked  that  the  Bishop  of  Condom 
— Bossuet,  whom   the   Princess   had   lately  come  to  know  and 


152  HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS 

esteem — should  be  sent  for.  It  was  done,  but  in  the  meantime 
arrived  M.  Nicolas  Feuillet,  a  Jansenist  Canon  of  Saint-Cloud. 
This  worthy's  behaviour,  though  doubtless  prompted  by  extreme 
piety,  was  a  mere  outrage.  It  infuriates  one  to  read  his  harrying 
of  the  tortured  woman. 

"  You  see,  M.  Feuillet,"  she  said,  as  he  drew  near,  "  the 
state  to  which  I  am  reduced.'' 

"A  very  good  state,  Madame.  You  will  now  confess  that 
there  is  a  God  in  Heaven,  whom  you  have  never  really  known." 

"  Mon  Dieu  !  "  she  cried,  a  little  later,  "  when  will  these  fearful 
pains  cease  ? " 

"What,  Madame,  are  you  already  impatient?  You  have 
been  sinning  against  God  for  twenty-six  years,  and  you  have 
only  begun  to  do  penance  in  these  last  six  hours  "... 

Feuillet  relates  these  things  of  himself — otherwise  it  might 
be  difficult  to  believe  them.  He  was,  to  the  reader's  relief, 
quickly  deprived  of  the  opportunity  for  any  further  display — 
for  at  this  moment,  arrived  the  great  priest  Bossuet,  Bishop  of 
Condom.  Her  pale  face  lit  up  when  she  saw  him.  "  Uespirance, 
Madame — V esp^rance ! ''  he  cried,  as  his  eyes  met  hers,  and 
coming  quickly  to  her,  he  placed  the  crucifix  in  her  hands.  All 
that  he  said  was  on  the  same  note  of  uplifting  rapture — and  when 
he  left  her  side  for  an  instant  to  give  her  rest,  she  called 
one  of  her  maids  and  whispered  in  English,  "Give  M.  de 
Condom  the  emerald  ring  I  have  had  made  for  him,  when  I  am 
dead."  .  .  .*  The  Jansenist  still  stood  near.  She  said  to  him, 
"  It  is  all  over.  Call  M.  de  Condom."  He  came,  he  heard  the 
last  sigh  of  avowal  .  .  .  the  crucifix  dropped  from  her  hands. 

It  was  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  last  day  of  June. 
She  was  only  twenty-six  years  old 


She  had  not  been  poisoned.  For  long  the  rumour  ran  that 
through  Lorraine's  agency,  the  silver  goblet  from  which  she 
drank  had  been  rubbed  with  a  deadly  powder.  Saint-Simon 
tells  a  dramatic  story  of  a  confronting  of  Lorraine's  accomplice 
with   Louis  XIV.  ;   but   the  story  is  unauthenticated.     Medical 

*  It  flashed  upon  his  finger  while  he  made  his  immortal  funeral  oration. 


HENRIETTE   D'ORLEANS  153 

knowledge  has  fortunately  made  advances  since  those  Court- 
physicians  answered  for  her  life  till  she  was  dead.  An  autopsy 
was  made.  It  is  now  known,  though  it  was  not  known  then, 
(even  after  the  autopsy)  that  Madame  died  of  acute  peritonitis  ;  * 
but  the  wonder  was,  indeed,  that  she  had  lived  so  long,  for  her 
constitution  was  utterly  undermined,  and  one  lung  was  quite 
gone.  She  had  been  frail  from  birth,  and  her  life  had  been 
one  never-ending  excitement,  worry,  and  fatigue.  Her  restless- 
ness was  abnormal — she  could  not  keep  quiet.  It  was  habit: 
she  had  carried  the  Court-life  on  her  shoulders  ever  since  she 
married — that  life  "which  was  idle  to  the  point  of  discomfort." 
One  might  almost  say  it  was  Etiquette  that  killed  her.  Those 
whispering,  fumbling,  lamentable  Court-physicians  !  That 
crowded,  murmuring  sick-room,  where  soldiers,  Ambassadors, 
Ministers,  King's  mistresses  (La  Valliere  and  Montespan 
together,  in  their  strange  and  ambiguous  companionship!), 
Princes  and  Princesses,  King  and  Queen  themselves,  watched 
the  long,  sudden  agony  .  .  .  here,  O  fortunate  lesser  men,  is 
the  courtier's  death-bed !  Truly,  Henrietta  Stuart,  exquisite 
lady  of  the  Court,  died,  as  she  had  lived  and  desired  to  live, 
"  according  to  etiquette." 

*  Littr^.    Medicine  et  Midecins. 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE 

1755-1793 

OF  Marie-Antoinette,  to  know  what  to  say  makes  one 
but  the  more  incapable  of  saying  it.  It  is  as  if 
History  stood  for  ever  by  a  death-bed  where  the 
last  dark  hours  are  reckoned,  like  the  fair  ones  on  the  sun-dial, 
the  only  hours — and  where  Compassion  alone  is  privileged  to  see 
clear.  We  read,  with  amused  curiosity,  the  Mercy- Argenteau  * 
Correspondence  with  Maria-Theresa  (from  1770  to  1780) :  that 
prods-verbaly  as  the  Goncourts  call  it,  "of  all  the  pedantic  old 
grumblings  of  her  elders  about  her  dresses,  her  feathers,  her 
everything — le  dossier  accusateur  de  toute  jolie  femnie ! "  We 
consider,  still  with  curiosity,  "that  unutterable  business  of  the 
Diamond  Necklace ; "  we  follow  her,  composedly  enough, 
through  the  dire  adventure  of  Varennes — and  plan  to  write  of  all 
with  zest  and  sympathy  and  perchance  a  spice  of  malice.  .  .  . 
But  then,  once  more,  the  tale  of  her  imprisonment,  her  widow- 
hood, her  death,  comes  into  our  hands  ;  and,  once  more,  nothing 
matters  for  us  but  that,  and  nothing,  we  think,  can  be  told  but 
that. 

Born  on  a  day  of  earthquake,!  she  was  from  the  first  ill- 
starred.  Omens  never  spoke  more  plainly.  Her  mother,  that 
professional  sovereign,  Maria-Theresa  of  Austria,  once  inquired 
of  a  clairvoyant  the  fate  of  her  Antoinette.  He  turned  pale. 
Madame,  there  are  crosses  for  all  shoulders  ;  and  would  say  no 
more.  ...  At  Strasbourg,  on  her  wedding-journey,  what  did 
Goethe  notice  }  The  tapestry  hangings  in  her  Pavilion  !  Jason, 
Creusa,  and   Medea — "the  most   fatal   union  in  history" — was 

*  He  was  Austrian  Ambassador  at  Paris. 

t  November  2,  1755.     Earthquake  at  Lisbon.     {Le  Jour  des  Marts.) 

*54 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE  155 

the  subject.  "The  bride  was  struggling  in  a  dreadful  death. 
The  Fury  was  soaring  into  the  air,  her  chariot  drawn  by  dragons. 
Was  not  the  dread  omen  accomplished  in  every  part } "  Her 
marriage-festivities  were  crushed  under  wildest  disaster ;  the 
scaffoldings  on  the  Place  Louis  XV.  caught  fire,  there  was 
trampling  of  horses,  plunder,  death.  She,  coming  in  her  young 
triumph  from  Versailles,  heard  the  awful  news,  the  cries  of  the 
dying — and  fled,  not  to  return  for  three  long  years. 

Fled    back    to    Versailles,   to    that    detestable    Court-life ! 

Detestable  at  any  time,  in  any   place — almost,  one  would  say, 

unlivable   for   human   beings — in   France,   at   the   time   of  her 

marriage   {17 yd)   it  was   infinitely  more   detestable  even  than 

elsewhere.     "  Exiles  from  living  life,"  the  Royal  family  and  the 

Court   led  a  strange  cloistered  existence,  like  that   of  oriental 

princes :  it   was   a  sort   of  imprisonment  at  Versailles  and   its 

annexes — Marly,     Choisy-le-Roi,     Compiegne,     Fontainebleau, 

whither  the   Court  went  every   year,  at   regular   seasons,  with 

its  long  trail  of  followers.     No  one  desired  to  know  what  went 

on ;  the  Court  and  Paris  were  the  antipodes  of  each  other ;  at 

the  end  of  two  years,  Marie- Antoinette  had  not  yet  visited  Paris. 

"  Fateful  and  presageful,  such  isolation,  such  divergence  from  the 

Spirit  of  the  Age  "...  And  the  life,  the  chosen  life !     Insipid 

and  monotonous  dissipation — hunting,  always  hunting  ;  gambling, 

always    gambling — to    the   never-ending   obligato   of    intrigue. 

"  They  watched  one  another,  each  from  his  own  den,  like  a  lot 

of  animals."     The  King  was  almost  invisible,  Dubarry's  creature, 

nothing  more.     Then   there  were  Mesdames,   his   daughters — 

"Rag,   Snip,   and    Pig" — embittered   and    divotes,    (that    most 

deadly  combination !)    disliked    and   disliking ;    there   was    the 

Comte  de  Provence,  manoeuvring  against  his  elder  brother,  the 

Dauphin ;   the  Comte  d'Artois,  manoeuvring  against   both ;  the 

Du  Barry  party,  Choiseul  party,  d'Orleans  party — what  a  place, 

under  the  light  of  Heaven  ! 

Brought  up  in  that  home-like  Austrian  Court,  where  love 
almost  reigned  instead  of  fear  and  cunning,  she  had  an  ironical 
turn  of  mind,  and  she  quickly  dubbed  her  chief  lady-in-waiting 
"  Madame  I'Etiquette " :  a  good  name  for  that  Comtesse  de 
Noailles,  who  understood  it  thoroughly,  and  only  it — in  all  this 


1 56  MARIE- ANTOINETTE 

glancing,  beaming  universe !  One  day,  the  fifteen-year-old  girl, 
riding  her  donkey,  was  thrown,  with  the  swirl  of  petticoats  that 
may  be  imagined.  Lying  on  her  back,  she  laughed  aloud.  "  Go 
and  call  Madame  de  Noailles  and  ask  her  the  correct  etiquette 
for  a  Princess  fallen  from  a  donkey ! "  .  .  .  She  liked  noise  and 
laughter ;  she  was  always  surrounded  by  a  lot  of  yapping  little 
dogs  ;  she  invented  the  silliest  school-girl  pranks — "  passing  like 
a  gleam,  like  a  song,  careless  of  her  train  and  of  her  ladies,  she 
does  not  walk — she  runs ! "  It  was  all  very  well  for  Maria- 
Theresa  and  Mercy- Argenteau  to  lecture,  to  pull  long  faces — she 
was  a  married  woman,  was  she  ?  No,  she  wasn^t.  ...  At  last  she 
blurted  it  out.  Somebody  had  begged  her  not  to  ride  so  much  :  it 
might  injure  her.  "  Mon  Dieu,  Mademoiselle,"  she  cried,  "  leave 
me  in  peace.  Be  assured  that  I  can  put  no  heir  in  danger." 
What  a  flash  in  the  eyes,  curl  in  the  lip,  revolt  in  the  soul,  as  she 
flung  that  speech  at  the  Court !  In  truth,  she  could  endanger  no 
heir.  Young  and  lovely,  well-tutored  in  her  supreme  duty  as 
Dauphiness  of  France,  she  was  confronted  with  an  enigma  which 
would  have  angered  her  more  seriously  if  she  had  been  more 
competent  to  deal  with  it:  the  conjugal  impassivity  of  her 
husband,  which  lasted  seven  years.  At  the  end  of  four,  he  had 
got  no  further  than  coldly  kissing  her.  And  no  one  seemed  to 
care — except  Maria-Theresa,  anxious  and  mortified  at  Vienna. 
At  last,  in  1774,  when  the  Emperor  Joseph  II.  of  Austria  was 
going  to  France,  Maria-Theresa  begged  him  to  intervene  ;  since 
the  Bourbons  would  not  reproduce  themselves  for  love  of  France, 
they  must  be  forced  to  do  so  for  love  of  Austria.  And  Joseph 
intervened  successfully,  but  not  until  1777  (for  his  journey 
had  to  be  put  ofl),  when  Louis  XVI.  had  been  King  for  three 
years ! 

This  is  the  very  heart  of  Marie- Antoinette's  story.  Her 
husband  refused  her  the  mere  formalities  of  a  Royal  marriage : 
there  was  nothing  to  attach  her  to  France,  and  the  Austrian  party 
at  Court  seized  the  young,  stubborn,  frivolous  creature  as  their 
prey.  She  must  remain  Austrian  ;  she  must  create  a  foreign 
party  at  Court.  Choiseul  helped  in  that — went  one  better  even 
than  Mercy,  for  Choiseul  encouraged  her  in  her  opposition  to 
Madame  Du  Barry.   Not  so  Mercy  and  Maria-Theresa,  who  were 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE  157 

all  for  a  becoming  ignorance  of  the  favourite's  functions.  "  You 
are  not  supposed  to  know  "  ;  and  indeed  she  had  not  known  at 
first.  .  .  .  Inevitable  that  Marie- Antoinette,  every  day  more__ 
humiliated,  should  detest  this  Queen  of  Vice,  flaunting  it  in  the 
Palace,  the  King  her  slave,  the  courtiers  her  creatures — while  the 
Dauphiness  of  France  languished  in  her  apartments,  the  bye-word 
of  all  those  sniggering  corridors !  "  The  more  she  was  told  to  be 
nice  to  la  Du  Barry,  the  more  she  snubbed  her."  How  could  it 
have  been  otherwise } 

She  was  naughty,  though — and  in  such  amazing  ways !  She 
would  not  wear  corsets,  she  would  appear  even  at  functions  in 
a  costume  that  looked  like  a  deshabilU ;  and  she  was  not  too 
careful  of  the  smaller  matters  of  the  law,  such  as  the  brushing  of 
teeth,  for  example.  It  was  difficult  to  induce  the  Dauphiness  of 
France  to  brush  her  teeth  regularly !  And  she  would  continue 
wearing  her  frilled  and  lace-trimmed  petticoats  long  after  their 
edges  were  smirched.  .  .  .  Again — the  obvious  explanation  :  that 
intolerable  slight  from  her  husband.  He  was  "  lourd  et  comme 
abruti"  Vigorous  and  virile  enough  to  look  at,  and  with  plenty 
of  opportunity  for  gallantries,  he  had  hitherto  cared  and  now 
continued  to  care  for  nothing  but  hunting  and  masonry.  "  He 
never  opened  his  mouth  except  to  put  something  in  it,"  and 
sometimes  he  put  too  much  in  it.  Her  letters  to  Maria-Theresa 
at  this  earliest  period  have  an  odd  kind  of  pathos,  with  their  grave 
little  bulletins  of  the  husband's  indigestions,  and  the  accounts  of 
her  precautions  against  them.  Doubtless  there  was  a  con- 
temptuous twitch  of  the  lips  as  she  penned  the  uninviting  details  ; 
and,  in  the  laugh  with  which  she  dismissed  the  topic  for  some- 
thing more  amusing,  we  seem  to  hear,  along  the  ages,  a  ring 
which  has  all  the  clearness  of  its  irony.  .  .  . 

Thus,  till  1773.  With  1773,  modifications.  She  grows  more 
regal,  more  serious  ;  more  fastidious,  more  adaptable.  The  King 
does  not  bore  her  so  much  as  at  first — or  rather,  she  has  learnt 
that  lesson,  the  flower  of  Court-training  :  to  accept  boredom  as  an 
essential  part  of  life.  She  has  even  spoken  to  Du  Barry — "  flung 
three  words  at  her  head  " — and  Du  Barry  has  been  disproportion- 
ately grateful.  Over  her  husband,  she  is  acquiring  influence  ; 
she  has  taught  him  to  speak,  to  smile,  to  dance.     Gradually  she 


1 58  MARIE-ANTOINETTE 

comes  to  dominate  him  entirely.  Mercy- Argenteau  rubs  his 
hands — subtly  flatters  the  girl  by  showing  her  what  her  power 
may  be,  and,  more  subtly  still,  provides  her  with  an  opportunity 
for  using  what  she  already  has.  He  advises  her  to  express  a  wish 
to  visit  Paris.  (Mercy  thinks  it  is  high  time  for  Paris  to  see  its 
Dauphiness,  three  years  married  now.)  She  gets  her  way :  an 
Entry  is  arranged  for  June  8,  1773.  And  what  a  success  !  Paris, 
in  its  inimitable  fashion,  goes  wild  about  its  Dauphiness.  "  A 
little  smiling  Princess,  so  full  of  vitality ! "  An  artist  places  her 
portrait  in  the  heart  of  a  full-blown  rose.  .  .  .  She  is  the  Star  of 
France :  "  Z^  Dauphine  est  si  belle,  la  Dauphine  est  si  bonnet 
Nothing  is  too  good  to  say  about  her.  Paris  is  in  transports. 
But  at  Versailles,  they  are  biting  their  lips.  There  are  attempts 
to  influence  the  King  against  her.  They  fail.  Then  the  Comte 
de  Provence  tries  an  imitation  of  the  famous  Entry:  but  the 
people  have  humour  if  he  has  none — his  Entry  is  a  gruesome 
failure. 

Well,  it  was  her  great  moment ;  she  might  have  changed  the 
destiny  of  France.  If  then  she  had  been  wise,  if  then  she  had 
seeriy  had  persuaded  Louis  XV.,  also  to  come  to  Paris  .  .  .  who 
knows  how  much  might  have  been  different  ?  But  she  was  only 
eighteen,  and  she  was  an  unmarried  wife  :  there  was  nothing  to 
give  her  insight.  She  behaved  like  the  giddy  girl  she  was.  "  Her 
heart  swelled  at  her  triumph,  but  her  ideas  did  not."  She  caught 
at  the  Paris  hearts,  and  forgot  the  Versailles  enmities.  It  was  all 
Paris  now:  she  was  there  incessantly — frivolously,  foolishly. 
Mercy  lost  hope  again.  "She  can  comprehend  aflairs  with 
extreme  facility,  but  she  is  veiy  much  averse  from  them.  ...  If 
she  does  not  govern  the  Dauphin,  some  one  else  will."  But 
Maria-Theresa  had  a  divided  mind  :  dreading  unpopularity,  she 
did  not  desire  her  daughter  to  have  too  great  an  influence  in 
politics — and  her  daughter  was  in  full  agreement.  "  There  never 
existed  a  Princess  who  manifested  a  more  marked  aversion  for  all 
serious  studies."  She  knew  nothing  of  history,  of  art,  of  litera- 
ture ;  she  was  so  desperately  ignorant  that  her  enemies  said  she 
was  deficient  in  sense.  No  one  could  persuade  her  to  read  ;  she 
was  as  indolent  as  a  cat,  except  when  it  was  a  question  of 
amusement. 


w 


MARIE-ANTOINETl^E  159 


In  April,  1774,  Louis  XV.  fell  ill ;  he  lay  dying  for  nearly  a 
fortnight.  "  All  the  world  was  getting  impatient  que  cela  finit ; 
that  poor  Louis  would  have  done  with  it.  It  is  now  the  loth  of 
May,  1774.  He  will  soon  have  done  now.  .  .  .  Hark  !  across  the 
CEil-de-Bceufy  what  sound  is  that — sound  *  terrible  and  absolutely 
like  thunder ' .?  It  is  the  sound  of  the  whole  Court,  rushing  to 
salute  the  new  Sovereigns.  .  .  .  The  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness 
are  King  and  Queen !  They  fall  on  their  knees  together  and 
with  streaming  tears  exclaim,  /  O  God,  guide  us,  protect  us  ;  we 
are  too  young  to  reign  ! ' — Too  young  indeed"  * 

"  The  Austrian  is  on  the  Throne!  .  .  .  This,"  says  Avenel, 
a  violently  Republican  writer,  "  is  the  Prologue  of  the  great 
drama  which  is  soon  to  begin,  when  Paris  will  march  upon 
Versailles  to  win  back  France  for  the  French."  Hostile  as  he 
is,  there  is  insight  here.  She  cared  hardly  at  all  for  affairs,  yet 
after  her  accession  she  interfered  in  them  perpetually,  and  her 
interference  was  so  ill-judged  yet  so  all-powerful,  that  Mercy  and 
Maria-Theresa  were  in  despair.  She  obtained  the  recall  of 
Choiseul — and  laughed  at  her  husband  for  yielding  to  her.  "  J'ai 
si  bien  fait  que  le pauvre  homme  m'a  arrange  lui-meme  Pheure  la 
phis  commode  !  "  Maria-Theresa  was  overwhelmed.  ^^^  The  poor 
man  I '  What  an  expression  !  She  is  rushing  headlong  to  her 
ruin."  But  at  this  moment,  her  popularity  was  at  its  height :  she 
reigned  over  the  King,  Paris,  the  Court,  the  Ministers.  Her 
dazzling  success  obliterated  her  follies— -for  she  was  still  dissi- 
pated, egotistic,  obstinate. 

How  did  she  contrive  to  lose  the  people's  hearts  }  It  was  a 
crowd  of  little  things :  she  was  tactless  first,  rebellious  next, 
insolent  at  last.  It  was  favouritism :  the  Princesse  de  Lamballe, 
the  Comtesse  de  Polignac  ;  it  was  insensate  dissipation,  gambling 
— her j'eu  denfer !  .  .  .  "The  Royal  orgy  flowed  all  over  Paris." 
She  went  to  every  Opera-Ball  and  stayed  till  six  in  the  morning  ; 
four  hours  later,  you  found  her  at  the  Races,  congratulating  the 
successful  jockeys,  whom  the  Comte  d' Artois  presented  to  her.  .  .  . 
She  had  an  attack  of  measles,  and  four  cavaliers  for  nurses.  The 
King  was  solicitously  guarded  from  risk  by  total  exclusion.  .  .  . 
Then  there  were  the  nasty  books — so  numerous  at  that  time — 
*  Carlyle,  French  Revolution^  Vol.  I.  chap.  IV. 


1 60  MARIE- ANTOINETTE 

with  which  her  room  was  swarming :  "  her  brother  Joseph  spoke 
of  the  indecencies  with  which  she  had  filled  her  mind."  There 
were  her  diamonds,  her  feathers,  her  dress  :  "  the  Queen  will  be 
the  ruin  of  all  the  French  ladies !  "  Every  morning,  the  First 
Lady-in-Waiting  brought  a  book  containing  patterns  of  all  her 
countless  gowns,  and  the  Queen  stuck  a  pin  into  those  she  meant 
to  wear.*  Madame  Bertin,  the  great  modiste  of  the  moment — 
the  Bertin  who  spoke  of "  my  negociations  with  the  Queen " 
— could  obtain  an  audience  when  Mercy  could  not.  .  .  .  Mercy 
gave  up  hope.  She  would  not  listen  to  any  serious  talk  of  affairs  : 
"  Cest  bon  !  mais  avant  tout,  ilfaut  s'amuser^  Maria-Theresa,  too, 
lost  heart :  here  was  a  daughter  who  forgot  her  mother's  birthday, 
who  would  send  her  mother  unfinished  letters,  even  unsigned  ones, 
but  could  send  finished  ones,  signed  ones,  to  all  her  absent  favourites. 
She  was  beyond  control ;  her  popularity  was  no  longer  in  question, 
no  such  thing  as  her  popularity  any  longer  existed— and  when  the 
time  came  for  clearer  vision,  all  was  irremediable.  Her  first  child 
was  born  in  1777 — a  daughter.  Too  late!  Not  wifehood  nor 
motherhood  it  was  which  could  change  her  then  :  so  merciless 
indeed  was  destiny.  ...  A  few  years  after  the  daughter's  birth, 
she  went  again  to  Paris.  "  Silence  received  her ;  indifference 
accompanied  her  "  :  she  came  back  in  tears,  asking  What  have  I 
done  to  them  ?  And  then,  1785-6,  "  that  unutterable  business  of 
the  Diamond  Necklace."  f  Unutterable,  truly  !  "  The  Largest 
Lie  of  the  Eighteenth  Century,  it  comes  to  us  borne  upon  an 
illimitable  dim  Chaos  of  Lies  "  f — which  to  examine  closely  here 
were  to  abandon  all  else  in  her  history.  To  the  clear  vision  of 
Goethe  it  presaged  the  coming  Revolution  ;  Talleyrand  wrote, 
"  Pay  attention  to  this  wretched  Necklace-affair ;  I  should 
not  be  in  the  least  surprised  if  it  overturned  the  throne."  She 
had  nothing  to  do  with  it,  knew  not  of  its  existence  till  it  had  almost 

*  The  National  Archives  possesses  a  curious  volume  :  M7ne.  la  Comtesse 
(fOssun,  Garde-robe  des  Atoitrs  de  la  Reine  :  Gazette  pour  Vannee  1782.  The 
patterns  are  fastened  by  wafers  to  the  paper  :  delicious  bright  light  colours  ! 
Old-rose  with  wide  black  stripes,  and  immense  spots  of  cream-colour,  flecked 
with  green  :  grey,  with  white  and  emerald  flecks  all  over  it. .  . .  And  the 
names  of  the  dressmakers  printed  above !  A  page  is  reproduced  in  the 
Goncourts'  Histoire  de  Marie- Antomette.    (^Edition  de  luxe,  1878.) 

t  Carlyle,  Frejich  Revolutiofi^  Vol.  I. 


MARIE- ANTOINETTE  161 

exploded  ;  fouler  calumny  never  fell  on  woman's  head — yet,  look- 
ing with  eyes  that  are  not  French,  that  are  neither  Royalist  nor 
Republican,  we  sadly  see  that  though  of  the  hideous  issue  she 
was  innocent,  she  had  herself  prepared  the  ground  for  it.  The 
calumny  was  foul,  but  there  are  Queens  upon  whom  it  could 
never  have  fallen.  Those  insane  night-promenades  at  Versailles, 
"in  simple  muslin  gown,  straw  hat,  thick  veil,"  where  she 
mingled  with  the  populace,  was  spoken  to  by  young  soldiers 
seated  beside  her  on  the  common  garden-bench — they  all  unwit- 
ting mostly,  but  once,  alas !  not  unwitting.  .  .  .  Cette  reine  qui 
se  sauvait  de  son  trone  !  murmur  the  Royalist  Goncourts  adoringly 
— but  Queens  may  not  run  away  from  their  thrones :  Queens 
must  pay,  as  others  pay.  Even  Madame  Campan  allows  that  the 
night-promenades  most  possibly  prompted  that  incident  in  the 
Necklace-Plot,  when  the  Queen  of  France  was  personated  by  "  a 
Parisian  unfortunate-female"  in  the  Hornbeam-Arbour  at 
Trianon ! 

"  Calumny ! "  cry  the  Goncourts :  "  when,  since  1774,  had 
calumny  been  silent  for  an  instant  about  her !  Calumny  was 
everywhere " — she  could  not  breathe  without  inhaling  it ;  and 
after  the  Necklace-affair,  popular  hatred  increased  until  "  it  was 
a  frenzy."  Songs  and  pasquinades  were  thick  as  carrion-flies : 
in  one  list  the  compiler  observes,  "  The  titles  of  many  pieces  have 
not  been  given :  decency  forbade  it."  Dramas  were  staged,  of 
which  the  same  writer  says  that  one  day  nobody  will  believe  that 
such  things  could  be  represented.  In  1787,  the  feeling  was  such 
that  her  portrait  was  not  exhibited  at  the  Louvre  lest  the  mob 
should  outrage  it.  "  She  has  known  France  and  the  French  but 
to  betray  and  despoil  them ;  with  her  own  hands,  she  could 
squander  all  the  gold  in  the  universe.  There  is  not  a  crime  that 
she  is  not  intimately  acquainted  with."  The  Austrian  Wolf:  the 
Tigress  of  Austria  :  those  were  the  names  she  had,  she  who  once 
had  been  the  Star  of  France  !  Nothing  was  too  bad  to  say  about 
her  now. 

She  had  her  Dauphin  by  this  time.  He  was  born  in  1785, 
before  the  scandal — the  little  boy  whom  such  unspeakable  things 
awaited.  ...  In  1786,  when  the  Necklace-Trial  was  over,  she 
gave  up  Paris,  theatres,  toilettes,  every  pleasure,  and  retired  to 

M 


1 62  MARIE- ANTOINETTE 

Trianon  with  her  tears — her  "  first  tears  of  unmixed  wretched- 
ness." The  first,  but  not  the  last.  Hardly  now  did  a  day  pass 
without  them — until  the  days  came  when  anguish  was  beyond 
such  relief. 

And  her  husband  ?  "  Poor  Queen's  husband,  who  means  well, 
had  he  any  fixed  meaning ! "  He  made  his  maps  and  his  keys 
— kept  his  hunting-diary,  writing  in  it  "  Nothing  "  on  the  days  he 
did  not  hunt.  Her  satirical  brilliant  brother  summed  him  up  in  a 
phrase.  "  The  Fiat  Lux  had  never  sounded  for  him — /a  matUre 
^tait  encore  en  globe!'  The  same  observer  said  of  her  that  she 
was  "  actually  austere — by  character  rather  than  by  conviction." 
Had  she  lovers,  a  lover.?  She  had  one  lover,  as  we  think — 
against  the  opinion  of  many  historians.  He  was  the  young 
Count  Axel  de  Fersen,  a  Swedish  gentleman  attached  to  the 
Court  of  France.  It  was  the  romance  of  her  life — the  undying 
memory  of  his.  He  was  the  true  knightly  lover :  gentle,  very 
cultured,  handsome,  "with  a  look  of  audacious  tenderness," 
brave,  utterly  devoted.  He  never  forgot  her,  he  died  adoring 
her,  raging  still  against  the  "  hellish  monsters  "  who  had  done  her 
to  death.  He  was  done  to  death  himself  at  Stockholm  in  1810, 
on  the  Twentieth  of  June— anniversary  of  the  Flight  to  Varennes ! 
"The  star  of  this  love  lights  her  life  with  a  gentle  radiance." 
.  .  .  Are  we  not  glad  of  Axel  de  Fersen  ?  Surely  woman 
never  needed  knightly  lover  more. 


Nothing  now  can  avail  us  any  longer ;  we  are  come  to  the 
evil  days  indeed.  Her  last  walk  in  the  darling  Trianon,  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  5th  of  October  ;  and  then,  the  awful  night ! 
The  night  when  Insurrection  surges  in  upon  them  in  their  sleep, 
when  "she  flies  for  her  life  across  the  CEil-de-Boeuf  .  .  .  the 
battering  of  insurrectionary  axes  audible "  ;  the  night  of  cries, 
Le  Rot  d  Paris  ! — the  night  when  she  steps  out  on  the  balcony 
with  her  children,  and  the  voices  yell,  No  children  !  and  she  puts 
them  back  and  stands,  her  hands  crossed  on  her  breast,  the  proud 
head  high — and  the  mob  is  momentarily  stirred  and  shouts  the 
last  Vivat  that  she  ever  heard. 

Next  day,  they  go  to  Paris  :  Le  boulanger^  la  boulanghe,  et  le 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE  163 

petit  mitron,  "The  Queen,  dry-eyed,  dumb,  immobile,  defied 
the  insults  as  she  had  defied  death  the  night  before.  *  I'm 
hungry ! '  said  the  Dauphin,  sitting  on  her  lap :  then  the  Queen 
wept!'  To  Paris — to  prison  :  the  Tuileries,  and,  by  permission, 
Saint-Cloud,  that  Palace  so  madly  purchased  in  her  name.  And 
then,  the  fatality  of  Varennes  on  that  night  of  June,  1791  :  pure 
fatality,  no  one,  nothing,  to  blame — except  that  last  fatality, 
Character.  Even  when  they  were  discovered,  even  when  they 
were  taken  ...  if  Louis  had  but  been  a  King  !  But  no  :  Louis 
knew  no  heroism  but  patience — and  "  she  was  not  great  enough 
to  succeed  against  such  absolute  incapacity  and  inertia."  Back 
to  Paris,  accordingly,  with  Petion  and  Barnave,  emissaries  of  the 
National  Assembly;  back  to  prison  at  the  Tuileries  and  to  her 
daily,  never- to-be-answered  prayer :  Que  le  roi  fasse  quelque  chose 
de  grand.  Pitiable  !  "  Alas  !  it  was  not  in  the  poor  phlegmatic 
man."  .  .  .  But  she  has  Elizabeth  with  her  now.  Elizabeth  is  the 
man  of  the  party ;  Elizabeth  wants  violent  measures  of  any  kind, 
wants  to  run  all  risks ;  "  ready  for  martyrdom,  but  readier  for 
fighting."  ..."  I  always  observed  in  her  a  very  deliberate  kind 
of  pride  that  seemed  to  have  neither  end  nor  object,  that  was 
roused  without  cause,  and  that  nothing  could  conciliate."  (Note 
by  Daujon  in  his  Narrative)  .  .  .  Elizabeth  is  the  world's 
darling ! 

A  year  after  the  Flight  to  Varennes,  the  mob  burst  into  the 
Tuileries.  A  handful  of  rods  was  thrust  in  her  face  :  For  Marie- 
Antoinette^  they  held  up  toy  guillotines,  gallows  with  little  dolls 
hanging,  a  plateful  of  bleeding  flesh  cut  in  the  shape  of  a  heart. 
.  .  .  Finally,  they  crammed  the  Red  Cap  on  her  head  and  on  the 
Dauphin's,  amid  the  imprecations  of  the  dreaded  Poissonni^res. 
She  looked  at  them.  "  /  am  French^''  she  said ;  "  /  was  happy 
when  you  loved  me"  For  an  instant,  with  those  words,  the 
tumult  died  ;  the  women  remembered  they  were  women.  .  .  . 

There  is  more  noise  next  day,  and  the  little  Dauphin  cries  in 
terror,  "  Oh !  Mamma,  isn't  yesterday  over  yet  1 "  Yesterday  is 
never  to  be  over.  They  try  to  give  her  soothing-draughts.  She 
refuses  with  a  gleam  of  her  old  irony.  "  Nerves  are  only  for 
fortunate  women."  In  truth,  all  bodily  ills  had  left  her  ;  her 
health  was  perfect,  "  as  if  to  aid  her  spirit,"  which  had  borne,  and 


164  MARIE-ANTOINETTE 

was  bearing,  and  had  yet  to  bear  so  much.  She  sometimes 
hoped  still :  the  torment  of  hope  still  beset  her.  But  "  the  King 
soon  dispelled  all  illusions  :  it  was  enough  to  look  at  him  "  ;  and 
at  last,  so  as  not  to  shame  him,  she  gave  up  trying,  gave  up 
hoping — and  the  Tenth  of  August  came.  She  did,  even  then,  try 
a  little.  He  was  ready  to  let  his  guards  go  :  "  Oh,  sire,  I  implore 
you,  keep  them  near  you."  No !  he  would  let  them  go ;  he 
would  "  obey  the  Assembly."  Then  she  knew  that  all  was  lost : 
Je  n'espkre  plus  rien.  Nay !  One  more  attempt  before  the  end. 
They  tell  her  that  Paris  is  marching  upon  them,  and  she  implores 
him  not  to  go.  "  But  there's  nothing  to  be  done  here,"  he  says 
— and  goes.  **  First  tell  them  to  nail  me  to  the  walls  of  this 
palace !  "  she  cries ;  but  then  she  makes  him  the  sacrifice  of  her 
last  desire — and  follows  him  :  "  this  Queen  who  would  have  liked 
to  die  like  a  King  !  " 

Real  prisons  then.  First,  Les  Feuillants.  While  she  was 
there,  she  bent  her  stately  head  one  day  to  a  couple  of  decent- 
looking  men  who  were  passing.  They  turned  upon  her.  "  Oh 
yes !  You  drop  your  damned  condescending  bobs  of  the  head, 
do  you  }  You  won't  have  it  long."  That  fair,  high  head ! 
"  She  carried  it  magnificently.  She  might  play  at  being  a 
shepherdess,  or  a  woman  of  fashion  :  once  she  stood  up  and 
moved  onward,  that  haughty  head  irrevocably  betrayed  the 
Queen."  The  gaolers  would  smoke  their  pipes  over  it,  would 
puff  the  smoke  in  her  face  as  she  passed  by.  She  tried  to  stay 
indoors,  but  the  children  needed  air — she  faced  it:  quivering 
shuddering,  she  drank  each  insult  to  the  dregs. 

In  1793,  the  King's  Trial  and  Death.  She  flashed  out  once. 
Passing  some  National  Guards,  she  cried,  passionately  turning 
upon  them  :  Voms  etes  totis  des  sciUrats.  But  upon  her  cry  there 
broke  the  voice  of  her  little  son  :  "  Let  me  pass !  I  am  going  to 
ask  the  people  not  to  kill  papa  roir  Her  little  son  !  Let  us  not 
speak  nor  think  of  what  was  done  with  him :  the  unspeakable, 
unthinkable.  .  .  .  They  took  him  from  her.     Had  that  been  all ! 

Her  look  at  the  crowd,  at  her  judges,  during  the  hideous 
mockery  that  was  called  her  Trial — how  one  is  glad  of  that  look  ! 
"  VoiS'tu,  comme  elle  estfitre"  the  common  women  whispered,  and 
demanded,  over  and  over  again,  that  she  should  stand  up  that 


%  M  »  »      •  • 


MARIE  ANTOINETTE 

FROM   THE   PICTURE   BY   MADAME   VIG^E    LEBRUN    AT   VERSAILLES 


MARIE-ANTOINETTE  165 

they  might  feast  upon  her  agony.  "  Will  they  never  be  weary  of 
my  weariness  ? "  she  asked,  as  half-fainting,  she  rose  for  the 
twentieth  time.  .  .  . 

Once  more  let  us  look  at  her,  though  we  indeed  are  loth  to  gaze. 
She  is  going  to  her  death  on  that  Sixteenth  of  October,  1793. 
As  she  left  her  cell  at  the  Conciergerie,  she  knocked  her  head — 
you  remember  that  she  carried  it  magnificently!* — against  the 
top  of  the  door.  "  Are  you  hurt,  madame  1 "  "  Nothing  can 
hurt  me  now."  Nothing  indeed  :  behold  the  face !  All  colour 
gone  from  the  eyes,  all  light ;  the  lids  are  reddened,  the  lashes 
are  scanty  and  stiff  from  many  tears  ;  agony  has  pinched  those 
nostrils  "which  once  quivered  with  young  pulsing  life,"  the  lips 
are  set  and  fallen,  the  smile  gone  from  them  long  since  for  ever. 
.  .  .  She  mounts  the  common,  muddied  cart.  One  plank  for 
seat,  no  straw  on  the  floor :  "  a  strong  white  horse  " — a  white  horse 
brings  bad  luck  !  She  is  in  a  common  piqu^  wrapper  ;  her  arms 
are  tied  behind  her ;  Sanson  walks  behind,  "  holding  the  end  of  the 
cord."  They  tell  her  to  sit  with  her  back  to  the  horses  ;  Sanson 
and  his  assistant  bare  their  heads — "the  only  decent  men  that  day." 

She  is  very  pale,  but  her  head  is  still  high.  She  looks  in- 
differently at  the  crowd,  till  at  a  street-corner  a  woman  makes  a 
baby  kiss  its  hand  to  her — and  then  the  face  is  stirred  for  a 
second  :  "  it  was  the  only  time  she  was  afraid  she  might  weep." 
.  .  .  The  people  were  silent  at  first ;  the  cart  went  very  slowly — 
"  she  drank  death  in  a  long  draught."  But  soon  the  voices  broke 
out :  obscenities,  imprecations  —  she  did  not  hear.  The  cart 
stopped  before  Saint- Roch ;  a  man,  caracoling  round  it  on  his 
horse,  brandished  his  sword  and  shouted:  La  voild,  Vinfdine 
Antoinette!  Elle  est  f  .  .  .,  mes  amis  !  His  name  is  known  ; 
"  he  was  an  actor." 

It  is  twelve  o'clock.  She  gives  one  look  at  the  Tuileries :  if 
she  could  turn  paler,  she  turns  paler  now.  .  .  .  She  mounts  the 
scaffold.  The  haughty  head  is  low  enough,  is  it  not }  It  lies 
upon  the  block.  It  will  be  lower  still  before  they  are  satisfied-: 
vois'tu,  comme  elle  est  fihe  ! 

And  yet  now,  once  more,  how  high  it  is — in  Sanson's  hands. 

Vive  la  Republique !  they  cry,  and  the  gendarme  Mingault 
dips  his  handkerchief  in  the  Blood  of  Austria. 


MARIE-CAROLINE 

"SON  ALTESSE   ROY  ALE  MADAME" 

DUCHESSE  DE  BERRY 
1798-187O 

AMAZON  she  has  been  called.  But  there  is  only  one 
word  which  truly  describes  her,  and  that  is  Woman. 
She  was  the  quintessence  of  woman — so  typical,  indeed, 
as  to  seem  almost  mythical.  The  wildfire  courage,  the  reckless 
squandering  of  herself  "  because  I  promised"  the  faith,  the  hope, 
the  blind  optimism  ;  the  volatility,  unreason,  stubbornness ;  the 
intuition,  sagacity,  and  folly,  the  patience,  endurance — impatience, 
weakness  .  .  .  these  in  themselves  would  suffice,  but  the  supreme 
instance  has  yet  to  be  shown.  Her  secret  marriage  !  We  know 
of  nothing  in  history  which  so  reveals  "the  dreadful  heart  of 
woman."  She  believed,  and  France  believed  for  much  longer 
than  she  did,  that  her  son — V Enfant  du  Miracle  ! — was  all  in  all 
to  her ;  that  that  son  should  be  King  one  day,  the  very  meaning, 
as  it  were,  of  her  life.  .  .  .  And  before  Vendee,  before  Nantes, 
before  Blaye — Marie- Caroline  knew  in  her  heart  of  hearts  that, 
mother  though  she  were,  she  was  passionate  woman  too  ;  that 
"  if  they  knew  "  they  would  no  longer  trust  her,  for  dynastic  things 
had  crumbled  into  dust  before  personal  things — that  Love,  in  a 
word,  was  once  more  Lord  of  all ;  and  that  she,  vehemently 
fighting  for  her  son's  restoration,  was  all  the  while  no  longer 
a  subject  of  France,  and  could  by  no  possibility  be  its  Regent ! 
.  .  .  If  in  this  she  were  blameworthy — and  the  Legitimists 
did  think  they  had  been  badly  treated — she  had  her  punishment 
quickly.  To  be  imprisoned  at  Blaye,  when  she  was  "  no  longer 
French,"  to  bring  forth  as  publicly  as  though  her  child  were  an 

166 


MARIE-CAROLINE  167 

enfant  de  France .  .  .  and  all  the  while,  to  be  married  for  love  to 
a  great  Italian  noble — this  was  bitter,  this  was  to  expiate  indeed 
her  two  crimes  of  falling  short,  and  of  keeping  secret. 
But  let  us  see  how  it  all  came  about. 


"  She  was  the  daughter,  sister,  niece,  and  mother  of  Kings  !  " 
cries  a  Legitimist,  in  his  passionate  defence  of  her.  Her  father 
was  Francis  I.,  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies  ;  her  mother,  the  Arch- 
duchess Clementine,  daughter  of  the  Emperor  Leopold.  Her 
grandfather  had  married  the  sister  of  Marie-Antoinette.  Born 
on  November  5th,  1798,  Marie- Caroline  was  married  at  eighteen- 
and-a-half  (June  17,  18 16)  to  the  Due  de  Berry,  second  son 
of  the  Comte  d'Artois  (afterwards  Charles  X.).  Louis  XVI II., 
Artois'  brother,  was  on  the  French  throne  then  for  the  second 
time.  Those  whirling  years !  First,  the  Monarchy  restored 
after  Moscow,  in  18 14;  next,  the  escape  from  Elba,  ^^  Vive 
HEmpereicr ! ",  Bourbons  a-flight,  and  the  Hundred  Days.  .  .  . 
And  then — Waterloo,  and  Napoleon  gone  for  ever,  and  the 
Bourbon  once  again  on  the  tossed  throne  ! 

Louis  XVI 1 1,  was  seated  there,  but  Artois,  his  brother,  was 
more  Royalist  than  Royalty.  His  sons,  the  Dukes  of  Angouleme 
and  Berry,  were  "  Ultras  "  too  ;  but  Angouleme  scarcely  counted, 
for  he  had  no  heir.  In  Berry  lay  the  one  hope  of  the  elder  Bourbon 
line.  His  young  wife,  too,  was  the  most  popular  personage  at 
Court.  She  was  gay  and  frank  and  sweet,  not  pretty.  Je  ne  suis 
pasjolie  :  je  suis  pire^  as  a  witty  actress  said.  A  tiny,  exquisite 
creature  she  was,  with  silver-gold  hair — the  Du  Barry  hair ! — so 
faintly  tinted  that  in  childhood  it  had  been  almost  white.  "  I  was 
an  albino  till  I  was  twenty-three,"  she  said  of  herself;  and 
she  had  another  trait  of  the  albino — the  large,  prominent,  weak 
eyes,  easily  inflamed :  "  she  often  suffered  from  it."  The  eyes 
were  short-sighted  too,  and  had  a  slight  cast,  "  a  vague  uncertain 
regard  " — that  obliquity  of  vision  which  is  so  frequently  charming, 
and,  to  judge  by  her  pictures,  certainly  seems  to  have  been 
charming  in  her.  The  lorgnon  was  a  prominent  part  of  her 
equipment :  the  exquisitely-dressed  head  would  poke  and  peer 
most  daintily,  and  then  the  glasses  would  go  up.  .  .  .  She  had  a 


168  MARIE-CAROLINE 

slightly  open  mouth — another  precarious  charm,  which  may 
or  may  not  *'  come  ofif  "  !  Certainly  the  catalogue  is  full  of  errata  : 
she  would  seem  to  have  had  no  passable  feature,  except  the 
"mythological  hair,"  the  perfect  complexion,  blanche^  blonde^  et 
rose^  the  ravishing  arms,  hands,  and  feet.  But  a  delicious  little 
person,  somehow,  and  the  most  natural,  spontaneous,  simple 
Princess  that  ever  teased  a  gloomy  Court  into  animation — a 
Court  dominated  hitherto  by  the  presence  of  that  Priestess 
of  Sorrow,  daughter  of  Louis  XVI.  and  Marie- Antoinette,  sister 
of  the  ill-fated  little  Louis  XVII. — who  never  was  Louis  XVII. 
at  all  except  in  the  loyal  hearts  and  prayers  of  Royalists.  That 
daughter,  that  sister,  was  now  Duchesse  d'Angouleme — childless, 
devout,  austere.  They  did  not  love  one  another  too  dearly, 
she  and  Marie-Caroline  !  There  was  never  any  open  breach 
— our  little  Duchess  was  too  sweet  for  that,  and  the  other 
Duchess  too  excellent ;  but  there  were  disapprovals,  grave  looks 
perhaps  .  .  .  and  shrugged  white  shoulders,  and  a  naughty 
lorgnon  that  refused  to  see  the  looks !  For  Marie- Caroline  came 
from  the  gay  land  of  Naples,  out  of  the  gayest  Court  in 
Europe.  Her  grandfather,  Ferdinand,  had  been  an  Eccentric. 
Etiquette  he  had  refused  to  learn  ;  good-humour,  familiarity,  even 
to  loss  of  dignity,  had  been  his  method,  and  she  had  inherited 
his  horror  for  all  that  was  "  stiff  and  pretentious."  She  loved  to 
laugh — and  she  was  not  fastidious  as  to  what  she  laughed  at. 
"  She  mixed  the  sel gaulois  with  her  own  Neapolitan  gaiety" — as 
good  Doctor  Meniere  was  delightedly  to  discover  in  the  bitter 
yet  amusing  days  at  Blaye !  Their  conversations  there,  with 
a  great  Parisian  accoucheur  sitting  by  and  contributing  ^^  des 
friandises"  were  sufficient  to  drive  every  other  woman  from 
the  room.  Well !  that  was  her  way.  Such  things  unfailingly 
amused  her.  When  she  was  almost  scorching  to  death  in  the 
chimney  hiding-place  at  Nantes — the  tears  of  pain  dried  instantly 
on  her  cheek  by  the  flaming  air,  her  dress  catching  fire  every 
minute  against  the  iron  plate  of  the  stove  .  .  .  she  still  would  fall 
into  helpless  fits  of  silent  mirth  at  the  "  rough  and  ready 
conversation "  of  the  two  unconscious  gendarmes,  makers  of 
the  blaze  that  was  threatening  to  kill  her.  It  is  written  in  her 
face,  we  think — that  humour :  such  types  are  the  born  hearers  of 


•  »     « 
»  •    *• 


MARIE  CAROLINE,  DUCHESSE  DE   BERRY 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING   AFTER   THE    PICTURE   BY   HESSE 


MARIE-CAROLINE  169 

whispered  stories,  secrets  of  the  alcove,  "friandises  "  of  famed 
accoucheurs ! 

And,  whatever  happened,  in  those  early  days  she  must  be 
amused.  Apparently  the  marriage  was  a  successful  one ;  at 
any  rate,  her  husband  adored  her.  He  was  a  big  ruddy  fellow, 
not  tall  yet  somehow  "  immense,"  with  a  great  bull-head,  huge 
bright  blue  eyes,  thick  lips  ;  very  pleasant,  kind,  and  generous. 
For  a  Royal  alliance,  all  seems  to  have  been  wonderfully  well. 
Marie-Caroline  was  then  entirely  frivolous,  but  she  had  every 
charm  ;  he  would  look  on  in  delight  at  her  "  little  ways,"  her 
perpetual,  exquisite  blush  (rare  charm  in  a  Princess ! ),  her 
naivete  and  spontaneity — "she  had  not  the  grand  air  and  did 
not  try  to  have  it "  ;  he  would  listen  to  her  pretty  amateurish 
singing  and  piano-playing  ;  would  laugh  at  her  crazes,  her  for 
ever  begun  and  never  finished  bits  of  work,  the  stocking  that 
someone  else  had  invariably  to  complete !  Just  the  sweet 
unaccountable  kind  of  creature  he  most  admired — as  such 
men  usually  do :  all  grace  and  fire  and  sublime  good  sense 
and  adorable  folly.  The  Duchesse  d'Angouleme  frowned  in 
vain  for  Berry:  whatever  Marie  did  was  right!  .  .  .  She  had 
borne  him  two  sons,  but  both  died  in  infancy ;  then  a  daughter 
came  ;  and  then,  in  1820 — the  assassination  of  her  husband 
outside  the  Opera-House  on  February  13  !  They  had  gone 
together  to  a  gala-performance,  and  she,  growing  weary, 
wished  to  leave  before  the  piece  was  over.  He  came  down 
with  her,  intending  to  return  to  the  Opera,  had  helped  her  into 
the  carriage  and  was  turning  away,  when  Louvel's  knife  pricked 
him.  It  seemed  nothing  at  first  .  .  .  but  soon  he  sank  in  a 
bleeding  heap  to  the  ground,  calling  to  his  wife  to  help  him 
— she  was  out  of  the  carriage  in  a  breath,  bending  over  him, 
her  gown  instantly  crimsoned  .  . .  They  got  him  to  the  Palace ; 
there  he  died  with  the  new  day,  imploring  Louis  XVIII.  to  have 
mercy  on  his  assassin.  It  was  his  last  request,  almost  his  last 
word — the  big,  generous-hearted  fellow  ! 

Marie-Caroline  was  enceinte  at  this  awful  hour.  On  September 
29th  of  the  same  year,  her  son  Henri  was  born :  the  Child  of 
Miracle,  the  Child  of  Europe,  as  he  came  to  be  called— that 
little  Due  de  Bordeaux  for  whom  she  dared  and  suffered  so  much  ; 


170  MARIE-CAROLINE 

the  delightful  child  who,  when  his  loved  tutor,  the  Due  de 
Riviere,  was  ill,  arranged  with  his  sister  that  until  he  was  better 
they  would  play  only  the  games  they  did  not  enjoy — and,  the 
good  news  of  improvement  arriving,  ran  into  the  salon,  crying, 
"  He's  better !  General  Illumination  !  "  and  lit  up,  at  noon,  the 
whole  array  of  wax  candles !  The  mother  of  such  a  child  is 
proclaimed  a  charming,  a  happy-natured  woman,  by  that  alone  ; 
for  indeed  the  little  boy  had  every  sweetness.  He  was  playing 
horses  with  his  sister  when  his  tutor  (now  the  Baron  de  Damas, 
for  the  loved  Due  de  Riviere  was  dead)  entered,  bowed  low,  and 
said  the  one  word  Sire!  Little  Henri  stopped  whipping  his 
horse  and  stared.  "  I  am  ordered,"  went  on  Damas,  "  to  tell 
you  that  the  King,  your  august  grandfather,  having  failed  to 
make  France  happy,  despite  his  heartfelt  desire  to  do  so,  has 
just  abdicated.  You  are  now  to  be  King,  under  the  title  of 
Henri  V."  The  little  coachman  got  down  from  his  high  chair. 
Standing  in  front  of  Damas,  he  said,  "  Good  papa,  who  is  so  kind 
and  good,  has  failed  to  make  France  happy — and  they  want  to 
make  me  King !  How  silly !  "  then,  shrugging,  "  M.  le  Baron,  it's 
impossible — what  you  tell  me."  .  .  .  And  he  caught  up  his  whip 
again,  "  Come  on,  sister,  let's  play  !  " — while  the  silenced  Baron 
left  the  Royal  presence. 

This  was  at  Rambouillet,  in  the  evil  days  of  August,  1830. 
His  mother  wanted  to  take  him  to  Paris,  present  him  to  the 
Chambers,  to  the  People,  to  the  Army.  .  .  .  She  would  be 
Regent :  yes,  it  was  her  right,  and  was  she  not  popular  ?  Had 
not  Vendee  and  Bretagne  acclaimed  her  in  1828,  when  she  made 
that  triumphant  progress  through  the  Loyal  Lands  ?  It  had 
been  almost  idolatry.  Oh,  let  her  go  with  little  Henri  to  Paris, 
and  all  would  yet  be  well.  A  child  of  nine,  all  innocent,  and  she, 
the  worshipped  mother  of  the  Enfant  de  F  Eur  ope  I  .  .  .  She 
would  go,  she  must  go.  The  carriage  was  ordered,  was  waiting 
in  the  courtyard  —  it  waited  until  seven  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing. Then  she  went,  weeping,  to  countermand  the  order.  The 
abdicated  King  was  King  still,  alas  !  at  home  ;  Charles  X.  would 
not  let  her  go.  "  Henri  V.'s  mother  was  crying" — and  her  tears 
were  justified.  Nettement  says,  "  All  depended  on  their  being 
present.  .  .  .    Fortune  is  like  men — she  condemns  the  absent." 


MARIE-CAROLINE  171 

Scarcely  an  historian  differs  from  Nettement  here.  If  she  had 
gone — if  she  had  been  allowed  to  go  !  Charles  won  his  game  of 
whist  that  night  at  Rambouillet,  and  the  Bourbons  lost  the  throne 
of  France  for  ever.  For  the  Usurper  was  ready :  the  Palais- 
Royal  was  to  win  against  the  Tuileries.  All  the  world  knows  of 
Louis -Philippe's  perfidy :  how  he  promised  Charles  to  proclaim 
himself  the  Protector  of  the  Due  de  Bordeaux,  and  how  he  pro- 
claimed only  the  abdication  of  Charles,  and  passed  over  Henri  V. 
as  if  he  had  never  been  born. 


Exile  then  for  Charles  and  Henri  and  Marie-Caroline  :  exile 
from  Paris,  from  the  Tuileries — and  from  her  darling  Rosny,  the 
old  castle  that  had  been  Sully's.  She  loved  Rosny  more  than 
any  place  in  the  world,  she  loved  Paris,  she  loved  France.  .  .  . 
And  now  it  is  the  frowning  English,  the  dour  Scotch,  dreary, 
dreary  Holyrood  !  The  Royal  Family  of  France  had  a  terrible 
reception  in  England.  Louis  Blanc, — that  chivalrous  Red  Re- 
publican— ^has  left  a  poignant  description  :  how  hats  were  kept  on 
and  arms  defiantly  crossed  in  the  presence  of  the  old  King,  how 
insults  were  so  rife  that  access  to  the  ship  had  to  be  forbidden. 
...  It  is  sad  to  read  this  of  England — who  had  sent  a  dispossessed 
King  to  France  in  her  own  evil  days,  and  had  known  such 
chivalrous,  such  lovely  graces  at  St.  Germain  !  Did  not  the 
French  King  come  to  the  foot  of  the  Grand  Staircase  to  receive 
the  English  James  }  and  here  was  Charles  greeted  by  a  growling 
gate-keeper.  Did  not  Louis  XIV.  offer  the  fallen  Stuart  a  casket 
full  of  gold  .  .  .  what  did  the  fallen  Bourbon  find  upon  his  table  ? 
"  Bills  and  threats  of  arrest  only  ;  nor  did  the  sentinel  present 
arms  to  the  old  man  who  had  been  a  King." 

How  Marie-Caroline's  heart  must  have  surged  with  anger !  If 
they  had  been  kind — was  not  the  sweetest  gratitude  waiting  from 
the  most  gracious  little  Princess  in  the  world .?  Cordial,  happy- 
natured,  joyous  ;  light,  free-spoken,  foolish — but  so  ready  to  be 
loved,  to  love  .  .  .  and  Holyrood  only  frowned  ;  Holyrood  only 
froze — oh,  froze  !  "  This  terrible  climate  : "  the  grey  sky,  the  grey 
life,  the  mortal  ennui.  .  .  .  Marie-Caroline  fled  in  1831  !  Back 
to  Italy — to  the  sweet  air,  blue  sky,  warm  hearts,  to  plot  and 


172  MARIE-CAROLINE 

plan  too  for  the  Child  of  Miracle :  "  I  can't  give  up  hope."  .  .  . 
Our  Royal  Family  at  Holyrood  are  not  encouraging.  Charles 
passive,  the  Dauphin  and  Dauphiness — she  who  had  been 
Duchesse  d'Angouleme — actually  hostile  ;  but  we  will  go  !  We 
go  to  Massa  in  the  Duchy  of  Modena  first :  has  not  its  King  been 
alone  in  Europe  in  refusing  to  recognise  the  usurper  ?  And  after 
Massa,  Naples;  and  after  Naples,  Rome.  .  .  .  Whom  do  we 
meet  in  Rome  }  Whom  but  the  Count  Lucchesi-Palli,  "  a  charm- 
ing, handsome  cavalier ! "  We  used  to  know  one  another  when 
we  were  children — perhaps  we  had  never  quite  forgotten  one 
another.  He  is  so  handsome — tall,  dark,  "  English-looking  "  (did 
that  please .?),  and  frank,  gay,  devoted.  .  .  .  And  Holyrood  had 
been  so  drear,  and  l/iey  had  been  so  gloomy,  and  we  love  to  laugh, 
we  love  to  love.  We  are  young,  "  not  pretty,  but  worse,"  warm- 
hearted, eager  for  joy.  .  .  .  But  oh,  we  are  the  mother  of  the 
"  Child  of  Europe,"  and  we  are  come  to  spread  insurrection  in 
France !  Vendee  is  ready,  Brittany  is  ready :  do  we  not  get 
letters,  passionately  summoning  us  thither,  every  day  of  our  lives  ? 
And  we  must  go  ourself,  for  we  will  not  have  our  son  set  on  his 
throne  by  strangers.  France  shall  not  be  invaded  (and  she  had 
wonderful  insight ;  she  saw,  alone  almost  in  her  time,  that  if 
things  went  on  as  they  were  going,  France  would  one  day  be 
invaded — as  France  was)  ;  Civil  war  is  better  than  Foreign  war. 
"  If  my  son  should  have  to  buy  the  throne  of  France  at  the  price 
of  one  province,  one  town,  one  fortress,  one  house,  one  cottage — I 
give  you  my  word,  as  Regent  and  Mother,  that  he  shall  never  be 
King ! " 

Yes :  Vendue  and  Brittany  and  we  are  ready — but  this 
Lucchesi  is  ready  too,  this  Lucchesi  is  eager,  is  importunate ; 
and  our  heart  is  deeply  stirred.  What  shall  we  do  }  Son  or 
Lover — oh,  we  are  torn  both  ways !  But  can  we  not  have  it  both 
ways  }  Will  not  Lucchesi  consent  to  a  secret  marriage  .'*... 
Lucchesi  consented.  On  December  13th  or  14th,  they  were 
married  secretly  in  Rome. 

Not  one  of  her  suite  knew  it,  then  or  afterwards — until  all  the 
world  knew  it.  The  reasons  were  pressing.  All  claim  to  the 
Regency  must  instantly  go,  if  she  were  known  to  be  married — 
and  now  that  the  agitation  and  the  tempest  of  feeling  were  over. 


MARIE-CAROLINE  173 

now  that  she  was  his  wife,  she  was  ready  to  be  her  son's  mother 
again.  .  .  .  She  had  got  it  both  ways,  but  France  was  to  have  it 
in  only  one  !  She  has  been  much  blamed.  Her  Legitimists  bit 
their  lips  in  poignant  anger.  The  anti-climax  of  it !  There  came 
a  letter  to  Doctor  Meniere  from  Paris  during  the  Blaye  period  : 
"  Even  if  she  had  had  her  baby  in  the  public  square,  she  ought  to 
have  denied  having  had  it."  La  chute  grotesque  de  ce  gMral  en 
77^pons !  .  .  .  Did  we  not  say  right  ?    Was  she  not  Very  Woman  } 


The  beginning  of  1832  found  her  desperately  busy  and  excited. 
Her  honeymoon  was  going  on,  but  in  her  letters  she  had  to  pre- 
tend to  be  idle,  bored,  absorbed  in  waiting  for  the  moment  when 
something  might  be  done.  One  ponders  on  Lucchesi's  state  of 
mind !  Was  he  philosophical,  or  ambitious,  or  merely  "  frank 
and  gay  "  .?  .  .  .  Whatever  he  was,  he  now  temporarily  disappears 
from  the  story — and,  ironically  enough,  as  he  disappears,  Madame's 
real  story  begins  :  Vendue,  Nantes,  and  Blaye. 

Vendue  first ;  the  Prise  d'Armes.  She  was  urged  incessantly 
by  the  Legitimists  :  "  There's  no  time  to  lose.  Success  is  inevi- 
table— make  haste !  La  Vendue  is  calling.  Every  day  of  delay 
is  a  theft  from  your  son's  heritage."  .  .  .  Those  were  the  sort  of 
letters  she  got,  and  she  was  ardent,  brave,  and  faithful,  and  she 
thought  that  she  might  save  France  from  a  European  war.  She 
decided  on  a  general  taking-up  of  arms  in  the  Loyal  Lands.  On 
April  25th,  1832,  she  left  Italy  for  Marseilles.  St.  Polycarp's 
Day!  by  all  Italians  regarded  as  unlucky.  .  .  .  She  was  dis- 
quieted, but  she  tried  to  be  of  good  cheer.  At  ten  o'clock  at  night 
she  left  her  house,  leaning  on  her  faithful  Brissac's  arm,  and  went 
down  to  the  shore  on  foot,  waiting  for  the  vessel.  It  did  not  come 
for  three  hours  ;  she  slept  on  the  sand,  wrapped  in  her  cloak — 
then  the  vessel  came,  and  she  embarked  for  it  in  a  fisherman's 
boat.  "  Your  heart  would  have  thrilled  with  admiration  if  you 
had  seen  her  ! "  wrote  the  Vicomtesse  de  Saint-Priest,  who  was 
with  her.  "  '  God  is  on  our  side,'  said  she.  *  See  what  splendid 
weather  —  the  wind  blows  for  France!'"  She  landed  at 
Marseilles,  disguised  as  a  Neapolitan  sailor  ;  the  ship  was  rolling 
in  a  heavy  sea,  the  boat  that  was  to  take  them  off  was  nearly 


174  MARIE-CAROLINE 

sucked  under.  Madame  jumped  down  into  it!  The  sailors 
were  enchanted,  and  set  off  eagerly  for  land.  It  was  very  dark  ; 
they  missed  their  point — they  took  her  to  the  most  dangerous  part 
of  the  coast,  the  "  Carry "  Cliffs,  which  robust  smugglers  could 
hardly  climb,  and  thus,  leaping  from  boulder  to  boulder,  soaked 
with  sea-water,  the  Duchesse  de  Berry  returned  to  France ! 

But  she  was  "  calm,  happy,  almost  gay,"  as  they  trudged 
through  the  difficult  country,  and  reached  at  last  the  game- 
keeper's hut,  where  she  was  to  pass  the  night.  The  next  day, 
letters  came,  encouraging,  ardent  letters :  Marseilles  will  move 
to-morrow  .  .  .  but  the  to-morrows  lasted  until  the  30th,  and 
then  three  fugitive  Legitimists  arrived  with  a  message :  The 
movement  has  failed ;  you  must  leave  France.  "  Leave  France  ! " 
cried  she  ;  "  no,  no !  but  we  must  leave  here  I"  .  .  .  Did  she 
again  recall  and  shudder  at  the  fabled  ill-luck  of  St.  Polycarp } 

Now  for  La  Vendee !  They  set  out,  walking  ;  once  more 
the  way  is  lost ;  once  more  she  goes  to  sleep  on  the  ground.  At 
Toulouse,  what  do  they  hear  ?  "  Vendue  is  full  of  troops  ; 
our  country  is  faithful,  well-disposed.  Let  Madame  stay  at 
Toulouse  !  "  No :  she  will  go  to  Vendue.  She  signs  the  order 
for  the  Prise  d'Armes:  it  is  to  be  on  the  24th.  She  was  at 
Plassac,  near  Blaye,  when  she  did  that.  There  she  took  on,  as 
attendant — "  so  as  to  have  a  woman  with  me  " — Eulalie  de 
Kersabiec,  thenceforth  to  be  known  as  Petit-Paul,  as  she  herself 
was  Petit-Pierre.  Poor  Eulalie  !  who  was  not  at  all  the  Amazon, 
who  did  not  even  know  how  to  ride — but  learned  there  and  then, 
so  as  to  accompany  Madame !  Both  wore  men's  garments : 
Marie-Caroline  was  dressed  as  a  countrified-looking  bourgeois^ 
with  a  brown  wig.  .  .  .  Well,  and  when  they  got  to  Vendee  ?  It 
was  hiding  in  farm  after  farm  ;  it  was  sleeping  in  barns — and 
sleeping  well ;  it  was  eating  black  bread,  drinking  cabbage- 
soup  straight  out  of  the  iron  pot,  for  there  were  no  plates,  and  no 
special  attentions  might  be  shown  to  Petit-Pierre  lest  he  be 
betrayed.  ...  Nothing  mattered :  she  was  waiting,  waiting,  for 
the  glorious  Twenty- Fourth !  .  .  .  And  all  the  while,  at  Nantes, 
"  her  men "  were  betraying  her.  Berryer,  the  great  advocate, 
was  sent  from  Paris  to  Nantes,  and  Berryer  forced  her  adherent, 
Marshal  de  Bourmont,  to  sign  that  wicked  countermand,  which 


MARIE-CAROLINE  175 

put  off,  without  her  knowledge,  the  rising  until  June  3rd !  .  .  . 
She  did  not  know,  and  the  five  chiefs  of  the  Vendue  Movement 
came  to  her  with  long  faces,  saying  that  the  people  were  not 
sufficiently  armed,  that  Vendee  swarmed  with  troops — "  fifty 
thousand,  they  say."  .  .  .  And  there  were  in  reality  but  three 
thousand  men  in  Vendue  ! 

Berryer's  countermand  was  flashing  through  the  country  ; 
but  they  did  not  know  that  yet.  .  .  .  She  stood  arguing  with 
them,  "  holding  a  chair  by  the  back,  stamping  from  time  to 
time,"  the  fair  face  deeply  flushed :  she  would  not  be  dissuaded. 
I  promised  Vendue.  And  when  Berryer  arrived,  and  she  heard 
of  the  countermand }  Her  first  thought  was  for  the  distant 
divisions.  "They  cannot  hear  in  time."  But  then,  she  flew 
into  a  rage  :  "  Oh,  the  lying  craft  that  for  ever  surrounds  us 
Royalties !  Well,  if  I  leave  France,  I'll  never  come  back  to  it." 
But  she  would  not  leave :  /  promised  Vendee.  .  .  .  And  was 
Vendee  true  like  her }  Alas !  "  Vendee  deserted  Madame," 
says  Sioc'han  de  Kersabiec,  that  flower  of  loyal  chivalry.  The 
five  chiefs  did  not  answer  the  call  to  arms.  "  Cowardice  ! " 
Kersabiec  insists  upon  the  word.  .  .  .  But  the  wretched  counter- 
mand, as  she  had  foreseen,  had  failed  to  reach  the  distant  troops. 
On  the  24th,  some  took  the  field,  were  utterly  destroyed  :  "  they 
fought,  knowing  they  had  been  abandoned."  But  it  was  not 
her  fault.  Once  again,  "her  men"  had  failed  her.  In  1830, 
Charles  X.,  who  would  not  let  her  go;  in  1832,  the  men  of 
Vendue,  who  would  not  let  her  fight. 


And  then,  the  escape  to  Nantes,  the  hiding  there — from 
June  to  November  in  a  garret,  during  that  summer  of  blinding 
heat.  ...  In  November,  the  betrayal.  Deutz,  the  "Jew  of 
Colmar  " — her  trusted  friend,  given  her  by  the  Pope  during  that 
visit  to  Rome,  Deutz,  for  whom  Kersabiec  can  find  but  one 
parallel :  the  disciple  who  betrayed  his  Master.  He  came  to 
Nantes  under  a  feigned  name  ;  "  but  no  one  could  see  M.  de 
Gonzague  and  not  be  sure  he  was  a  traitor."  .  .  .  The  Kersa- 
biecs,  the  Guinis,  her  cur^,  all  have  seen  "  M.  de  Gonzague,"  all 
try  to  dissuade  her :  no !  she  will  see  him,  he  has  letters,  they 


176  MARIE-CAROLINE 

may  be  vitally  important.  She  sees  him,  recognises  him  :  "  Mon 
ami !  "  she  cries.  ..."  He  turned  faint  for  a  minuted  She 
gave  him  a  chair  with  her  own  hands — soon  he  "recovered 
himself."  But  still  she  might  have  been  saved,  for  he  had  been 
brought  to  her  by  devious  ways,  and  he  had  been  made  to  think 
that  she  had  come  from  far  (they  had  put  muddy  shoes  on  her 
feet  to  feign  the  tired  walker !)  .  .  .  and  he  went,  and  could  no 
more  find  the  place.  But  she  asked  to  see  him  again !  Again 
the  friends  dissuade  her — again  she  persists.  Oh,  strange ! 
superstitious  as  you  are,  Marie- Caroline — have  you  forgotten 
St.  Polycarp's  Day  ?  And  even  if  you  have,  did  you  not  lose 
your  little  pin,  "  that  brings  you  luck,"  quite  lately  ?  And  even 
if  you  found  it,  have  you  not  dreamed  these  last  three  nights  of 
monkeys  ?  Rever  singe  est  irh  mauvais  signe.  .  .  .  and  the 
third  time — remember !  the  hideous  ape  caught  your  hair, 
dragged  off  your  cap — think,  think  !  "  She  was  terribly  agitated 
by  the  dream."  Yet  she  saw  Deutz,  The  day  she  saw  him,  in 
the  very  hour,  came  a  letter  in  sympathetic  ink,  begging  her  to 
be  on  her  guard  :  "  A  man  in  your  confidence  has  sold  you  for 
a  million  to  Thiers."  She  threw  it  down,  laughing  :  "  Perhaps 
it's  you  !  "  "  Possibly,"  smiled  Deutz.  That  night,  somebody, 
going  casually  to  the  window,  saw  the  flash  of  bayonets,  coming 
to  the  house.  ..."  Sauvez-vous^  Madame — sativez-vous  !  " 

She  rushed  up  to  the  garret :  the  chosen  hiding-place  was 
there.  A  space  behind  the  fireplace — four  feet  wide,  fourteen 
long,  five  feet  high :  one  entered  by  creeping  along  the  hearth. 
Luckily  the  door  was  open:  that  gained  them  time.  First, 
(because  it  was  a  little  higher  at  the  further  end)  went  the  two 
men,  Mesnard  and  Guibourg,  then  the  Kersabiec  sister, 
finally  Madame.  The  door  of  the  cachette  closed  just  as  the 
street-door  opened.  .  .  .  Sixteen  hours  they  were  there.  They 
would  never  have  been  found  at  all,  if  the  gendarmes  had  not 
lit  their  famous  blaze !  Over  and  over  again,  Madame's  dress 
caught  fire  against  the  white-hot  iron  plate.  .  .  .  She  put  it  out 
with  her  hands.  Then  the  smoke  from  newspapers  piled  upon 
the  fire  when  it  seemed  about  to  die,  came  in  and  suffocated.  It 
was  certain  death  if  they  stayed :  the  death  of  rats  in  a  hole. 
But  all  will  stay,  if  Madame  stays.     She  weeps  with  rage  :  the 


MARIE-CAROLINE  177 

tears  are  dried  upon  her  cheeks  by  the  blistering  heat.  .  .  . 
Then  she  gives  the  order  to  surrender.  "  We  are  going  to 
open  the  door.  Take  down  the  fire !  "  And  then,  Son  Altesse 
Royale  Madame  .  .  .  creeps  out  on  her  hands  and  knees,  her 
face  blackened,  her  eyes  seared,  her  hair  singed — and  they 
arrest  her. 


Blaye  now — and  the  secret  out  at  last !  On  February  26th, 
1833,  her  confession  of  the  secret  marriage.  "  Forced  by  pressure 
of  circumstance,  and  by  the  measures  ordered  by  the  Government, 
although  I  had  the  gravest  motives  for  keeping  my  marriage 
secret,  I  now  owe  it  to  myself,  as  well  as  to  my  children, 
to  declare  that  I  was  secretly  married  during  my  stay  in  Italy." 

That  letter  to  Louis-Philippe,  which  ought  to  have  been  kept 
a  State-secret,  was  published  in  the  Moniteur  for  all  the  world  to 
read  ;  and  not  one  humiliation  did  it  save  her,  not  one  infamy, 
not  one  word  of  scandal.  .  .  .  She  was  kept  a  prisoner  at  Blaye 
— that  "  frightfully  cold  "  citadel  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Gironde 
— from  November  i6th,  1832,  to  June  8th,  1833.  "  Unparalleled," 
cried  Chateaubriand,  "this  torture  inflicted  on  a  helpless 
woman,  utterly  alone  and  unaided !  Her  own  relatives  "  (Louis- 
Philippe  was  her  uncle)  "  expose  her  to  the  derision  of  lackeys, 
hold  her  down  while  she  brings  forth  publicly,  calling  upon  all  the 
servilities  they  can  muster  to  look  on  .  .  .  'twas  as  if  France  were 
summoned  to  the  birth  of  a  King.  Would  the  galleys  yield  us 
such  another  set  of  people  } "  The  English  Press  was  disgusted  : 
"  As  purposeless  as  it  is  barbarous  "  ;  "  One  of  the  most  revolting 
proceedings  that  the  world  has  ever  seen."  .  .  .  Poor  good  Dr. 
M^ni^re,  who  cheered  her  durance  with  his  affection  and  his  wit, 
was  rallied  by  Soult :  "  I  hear  you're  au  mieux  with  Madame  !  "  ; 
innumerable  fathers  were  suggested  for  the  coming  child  ;  letters 
flew  about :  "  Let  her  confess  that  at  Caraca  she  forgot  all  in 
the  arms  of  a  painter  "  ;  and  "  No  one  but  myself  knows  of  her 
infamous  conduct."  ... 

Marie- Caroline,  "  daughter,  sister,  niece,  and  mother  of 
Kings,"  brought  forth  a  daughter  on  May  3rd,  1833.  On 
June  7th,  she  was  liberated.      Everybody  must  see  her  go  :  that 

N 


178  MARIE-CAROLINE 

was  the  order.  And  thus  she  went.  Stared  at,  commented  on — 
defeated !  Defeated  finally  now.  All  was  over.  Was  she  glad, 
was  she  grieved  }  Perhaps  indeed  she  was  glad.  "  I  think  I've 
done  enough  for  my  son.  I  am  weary  of  this  restless  life  ;  I  want 
repose,  sunshine,  and  oblivion  " — and,  we  hope,  that  handsome, 
patient  cavalier,  who  was  so  "  frank  and  gay  "  ! 

She  lived  happily  till  1870,  the  year  of  that  invasion  which  she 
had  long  ago  foreseen.  But  they  had  not  listened :  when  had  a 
Bourbon  ever  listened  ?  "  She  was  so  light,"  they  said — they  who 
learned  nothing  and  forgot  nothing  !  Berryer,  the  great  advocate 
who  betrayed  her — for  her  own  better  safety,  as  he  truly  thought 
— had  cried,  after  that  interview  before  the  Rising,  when  she 
"  stood  holding  a  chair  and  stamping  her  foot,"  and  saying  / 
promised  Vendee  .  .  .  Berryer  had  cried,  "  She  has  head  enough 
and  heart  enough  for  twenty  kings !  " 

He  might  have  found  a  better  phrase,  we  think,  considering 
what  kings  were  then.  We  prefer  our  own — we  are  tenacious  of 
our  own.     She  was  Very  Woman  ! 


PAULINE   BORGHESE 

1780-1825 

ROSE-COLOUR !  Directly  one  thinks  of  Pauline  Borghese, 
the  room — not  the  atmosphere — seems  suffused  with 
rose-colour.  Atmosphere  she  had  none,  nor  did  she 
ever  realise  that,  literally  or  metaphorically,  such  a  thing  existed. 
Her  heaven  was  rose-colour,  and  the  clouds  were  of  tulle  ;  le  bon 
Dieu  one  cannot  but  imagine  that  she  figured  to  herself  as  a 
Great  Man-Milliner — greater  even  than  the  great  Leroy.  To  be 
pretty  was  her  sole  ambition.  She  brilliantly  achieved  it — Leroy 
helping  her ! 


She  was  born  at  Ajaccio,  " cette  ville  gdUe  par  la  nature','  on 
October  20th,  1780.  Her  father,  Charles  Bonaparte,  had  fought 
with  Paoli  for  the  independence  of  his  country  when  Corsica  was 
bought  from  the  Republic  of  Genoa.  When  Paoli  was  vanquished 
in  1769,  Charles  was  allowed  to  return  to  Ajaccio,  and  there 
entered  into  close  relations  with  M.  de  Marbeuf,  who  afterwards 
became  Governor.  Bonaparte's  chief  characteristic  was  want  of 
energy  ;  probably  his  warlike  career  was  due  to  the  influence  of 
his  wife,  Letizia  Ramolino,  the  Madame  Mhe  of  later  days.  She 
was  a  "solid  character,"  frank,  incapable  of  frivolity,  illiterate, 
frenetically  economical,  exceedingly  pretty — a  true  Corsican  type. 
But  though  she  has  been  much  eulogised,  she  "  fell  in  reality  "  (as 
Turquan  remarks),  "  very  far  below  her  task  of  motherhood."  She 
neglected  her  daughters  :  they  ran  wild  "  like  little  heather- 
ponies,"  they  were  never  taught  duty,  self-respect,  or  virtue  ;  and 
neither  they  nor  her  sons  ever  dreamed  of  consulting  her  about 
anything.  Madame  Mhe  was  a  dignified,  handsome  woman — 
that  was  all ! 

179 


180  PAULLNE   BORGHESE 

Stendhal  says  that  it  would  have  been  far  better  for  Napoleon 
if  he  had  had  no  relations  ;  and  Napoleon  himself  declared,  "  My 
family  have  done  me  far  more  harm  than  I  have  been  enabled  to 
do  them  good.  .  .  .  Really,  to  hear  them  talk,  one  would  think 
that  I  had  wasted  my  father's  substance !  "  "  Tout  par ii pirit  par 
les  femmesl'  remarks  Michelet, "  and  the  Imperial  regime  owes  its 
destruction  in  part  to  the  sisters  of  Napoleon."  They  were 
"crowned  courtesans,"  all  three.  Pauline  was  the  loveliest 
woman  of  her  time,  and  probably  the  least  virtuous.  "  It  is 
impossible  to  form  any  idea  of  her  beauty  from  her  pictures."  .  .  . 
"  She  was  the  loveliest  woman  I  ever  beheld."  ..."  A  veritable 
master-piece  of  creation."  .  .  .  Such  are  the  testimonies  of 
contemporaries. 

At  thirteen  (1783),  she  left  Corsica  with  her  family  to  take 
refuge  in  Marseilles.*  They  lived,  more  or  less  on  charity,  in  an 
old  house  in  the  "  Old  Town  "  quarter  ;  the  girls  were  wretchedly 
dressed,  yet  Pauline,  already  ravishing,  instantly  attracted  atten- 
tion. Her  clothes  were  dreadful,  but  her  eyes — "  those  eyes  which 
she  never  had  any  notion  of  putting  in  her  pocket " — were  divine. 
She  would  rage  against  the  villainous  hats,  the  cheap  disfiguring 
shoes — "  if  anyone  had  told  her  in  those  days  that  poverty  is  no 
crime,  she  would  certainly  have  answered,  like  Rivarol,  *  Cest 
him  pis ' ! "     Nevertheless,  a  serious  lover  had  already  appeared. 

There  were  two  remarkable  young  men  in  Marseilles  just  then, 
the  Citizens  Barras  and  Fr^ron,  sent  thither  as  Commissaries 
of  the  Convention.  Through  the  brothers,  these  distinguished 
personages  became  acquainted  with  the  Bonaparte  girls,  and 
visited  them  "  unconventionally  often."  Freron  at  once  fell  over 
head  and  ears  in  love  with  Pauline.  He  had  a  reputation  for 
fire-eating  and  for  fashion — ever  an  attractive  combination  ;  he 
had  been  a  schoolfellow,  and  was  still  an  intimate  friend,  of 
Robespierre ;  he  had  known  Jean  Paul  Marat ;  he  represented 
the  Convention !  It  would  have  been  stupid  not  to  fall  in 
love  with  Freron,  and  she  fell  in  love,  or  in  something  a  little 
like  it — something  which  produced  letters  with  such  postscripts  as 
this: 

*  This  was  when  Paoli,  disgusted  with  the  French  Revolution,  threw 
himself  into  the  arms  of  England. 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  181 

"  Ti  amo  semprCy  e  passionattissimamente^  per  sempre  amo, 
^sbelV  idol  mio^  set  cuore  miOy  tenero  amico^  ti  amo^  amo^  amo,  si 
amatissimo  amante."  ...  "I  swear,  dear  Stanislas,  never  to 
love  anyone  else." 

"  If  she  should  break  it,  now  !  " 

The  affair  with  Freron  was  permitted  at  first.  But  before  he 
had  made  a  formal  request  for  Paulette's  hand,  a  rival  appeared 
— Junot,  Napoleon's  aide-de-camp.  Junot  lost  no  time  in 
applying  at  head-quarters.  One  evening,  he  and  Napoleon,  who 
had  left  Marseilles  for  Paris,  were  walking  in  the  Jardin  des 
Plantes,  and  the  lover  seized  the  opportunity  for  confession.  It 
was  an  exquisite  evening  ;  Napoleon  was  in  good  humour.  He 
listened,  he  seemed  touched  by  the  young  passion  beside  him,  and 
while  they  strolled  through  the  leafy  alleys,  this  melting  mood 
endured.  But  no  sooner  did  they  leave  the  Garden  and  feel  the 
pavement  under  their  feet,  than  his  attitude  altered.  "  You're  too 
poor.  You  have  nothing  ;  she  has  nothing  ;  what's  the  total } 
Nothing ! "  There  was  no  answering  that ;  and  thus  Junot  got 
his  dismissal. 

It  ought  to  have  been  all  the  better  for  Freron,  but  times  were 
changing.  He  no  longer  retained  his  post  on  the  Paris  journal ; 
he  was  in  debt — and  Napoleon  was  growing  daily  more  important. 
As  if  the  lovers'  evil  star  were  set  in  heaven,  scandal  now  began 
to  have  something  to  say  about  him — rumours  that  he  was  already 
married.  Pauline  was  incredulous,  but  Napoleon  and  Josephine 
declared  that  the  affair  must  end.  Pauline  struggled  hard  ;  she 
taunted  her  brother  finally  with  snobbery.  "/  do  not  change 
with  my  circumstances."  ...  He  took  no  notice,  and  she  tried 
tragedy.  ^^  J'enmourrai^voild,  tout!'  .  .  .  But Lucien Bonaparte, 
Freron's  special  friend,  was  soon  obliged  to  tell  him  that  all  was 
lost— and  Pauline  did  not  die. 

The  family  were  then  at  Antibes,  where  Napoleon  had  taken 
a  charming  villa  for  them.  They  were  better  off;  there  were 
more  distractions.  The  girls  enjoyed  themselves  hugely,  and  when 
they  went  back  to  Marseilles,  they  kept  the  ball  a-rolling.  They 
organised  private  theatricals  ;  a  companion  of  those  days,  young 
de  Ricard  (afterwards  the  General  de  Ricard  of  Autour  des 
Bonapartes),  has  stories  to  tell  of  fun  behind  the  scenes — that 


182  PAULINE   BORGHESE 

accepted  convention  of  amateur  theatricals.  "  The  Bonaparte 
girls  used  to  dress  us,  in  the  fullest  acceptation  of  the  term,  used 
to  pull  our  ears,  to  slap  us,  but  always  kissed  and  made  up  after- 
wards. We  used  to  stay  in  the  girls'  room  all  the  time  they  were 
dressing."  .  .  . 

In  1797,  Napoleon's  victories  in  Italy  were  intoxicating 
France.  He  was  the  Man  of  the  Hour ;  and,  like  a  true 
Corsican,  he  instantly  began  to  think  of  using  the  women  of  his 
family  for  the  •  glory,  consideration,  and  influence  of  the  clan,  so 
he  proposed  to  one  of  his  Generals,  Marmont,  that  he  should 
marry  Pauline.  But  Marmont  declined.  "  She  is  charming, 
exquisite ;  but  I  have  dreams  of  domestic  felicity,  fidelity,  and 
virtue — seldom  realised,  it  is  true  ;  yet  in  the  hope  of  attaining 
them "  he  renounced  this  marriage  !  Pauline  was  then  seven- 
teen ;  and  already  it  is  clear  that  she  left  no  doubt  as  to  her 
tendencies.  "  As  to  a  good  reputation,  there  had  never  been  any 
question  of  such  a  thing,"  says  Turquan  gaily,  in  his  scandalous 
and  amusing  book. 

The  family  were  now  at  Milan.*  Napoleon  had  gone  there, 
during  the  armistice,  to  live  in  the  Castle  of  Montebello,  and  had 
sent  for  his  people  to  come  and  enjoy  his  new  glories.  Pauline, 
despite  the  Freron  struggle,  was  enchanted ;  she  adored  her 
brother,  no  matter  what  he  did.  The  sisters-in-law  had  not  met ; 
nor  was  Pauline  desirous  to  encounter  Josephine — tJtat  interven- 
tion in  her  love-affair  she  would  have  been  superhuman  to  for- 
give !  But  she  perhaps  anticipated  some  feline  amusement ;  and 
at  Milan,  sure  enough,  she  did  prove  very  troublesome. 
Napoleon  had  frequently  to  bestow  upon  her  "  those  awful 
glances  which  he  employed  to  recall  refractory  soldiers  to  order." 
"  They  didn't  recall  her,"  continues  Arnault,t  "  one  moment 
afterwards  she  was  just  as  bad  again  !  "  He  gives  us  an  amusing 
picture  of  her.  "  Extraordinary  combination  of  the  most  faultless 
physical  beauty,  and  the  oddest  moral  laxity !  She  was  as  pretty 
as  you  please,  but  as  unreasonable  too.  She  had  no  more 
manners  than  a  school-girl — she  talked  incoherently,  giggled  at 

*  1797.     Marie-Anne  (Elise)  was  married  by  this  time  ;  so  only  Paulette 
and  Annunziata  (Caroline)  went  with  Madame  Bonaparte, 
t  Souvtnirs  d^un  Sexag^naire, 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  183 

everything  and  nothing,  imitated  the  most  serious  personages,  put 
out  her  tongue  at  her  sister-in-law  behind  her  back,  nudged  me 
with  her  knee  when  I  didn't  happen  to  be  attending  to  her.  .  ,  • 
She  was  a  good  child,  naturally  rather  than  voluntarily,  for  she 
had  no  principles.  She  was  capable  of  doing  good,  but  chiefly 
from  caprice." 

There  was  nothing  impossible  that  she  did  not  do  at  Milan. 
She  listened  at  key-holes  and  "  found  out  things "  about  Jose- 
phine, she  flirted  with  the  officers  of  her  brother's  staff.  .  .  .  Some 
say  that  it  was  in  one  of  her  incursions  into  the  official  bureaux 
that  her  marriage  with  General  Leclerc  was  arranged.  Napoleon 
overheard  him  making  too-violent  love  to  her — "  and  the  marriage 
was  celebrated  without  losing  an  instant !  "  This  version  comes 
from  the  very  unreliable  Monnier  MSS. — it  is  probably  false  ;  but 
there  is  no  doubt  that  Pauline's  marriage  was  very  hastily 
arranged.  General  Leclerc  was  twenty-six  ;  rich,  gentle,  and 
benevolent-looking,  of  middle  height  and  frail  constitution,  "  with 
a  grave  manner."  It  does  not  sound  promising  !  Yet  it  turned 
out  not  so  very  ill.  Leclerc  was  passionately  in  love,  Pauline  was 
amused  with  that  quaint  toy,  a  husband — and  apparently  the  toy 
was  of  good  mechanism  ;  it  made  no  unreasonable  demands.  In 
the  Monnier  MSS.  it  is  related  that  at  a  little  dinner  in  1831,  some 
stories  were  told  about  the  Princess  Pauline  by  M.  de  Semonville. 

"  I  was  one  of  her  lovers,"  he  said  ;  "  there  were  five  of  us  in 
the  same  house  who  shared  her  favours,  before  her  departure 
for  San  Domingo.  Among  these  was  one  Macdonald,  for  whom 
Pauline  took  a  desperate  fancy.  For  three  days  they  were  shut 
up  together  at  Saint-Leu.  They  had  some  food  with  them,  and 
during  that  time,  they  never  opened  the  door  to  a  living  soul." 
.  .  .  People  remarked  that  Leclerc  grew  graver  and  graver.  It 
was  all  he  could  do,  no  doubt — unless  he  had  been  able  to  laugh 
heartily.  But  love  impairs  the  sense  of  humour ;  and  the 
husband  frowned  perhaps  instead  of  laughing,  at  such  episodes 
as  a  visit  to  the  wounded  Junot  at  Milan.  The  invalid  had  been 
ordered  to  keep  very  quiet,  so  nothing  could  be  more  natural 
than  that  Pauline,  Josephine,  and  Josephine's  maid  Louise 
should  go  in  a  body  to  pay  him  a  visit.  It  was  all  the  more  a 
matter-of-course  because,  two  years  before,  Junot  had  been  madly 


184  PAULINE   BORGHESE 

in  love  with  Pauline ;  because  Josephine  had  tried,  later,  to 
entangle  him  in  a  flirtation  ;  and  because  he,  too  honourable  to 
betray  his  master,  had  then  feigned  to  be  in  love  with  the  maid 
Louise !  *  Junot  must  have  welcomed  the  trio  with  some  per- 
plexity. Difficult  to  know  which  pair  of  feminine  eyes  to  avoid 
the  most  carefully !  Picturesque,  pale,  half-a-hero,  nevertheless, 
he  lay  there,  "  in  a  sort  of  dressing-gown  of  white  pique,"  and 
entertained  his  astonishing  guests.  They  gossipped  and 
chattered  ;  Pauline  showed  her  pretty  teeth,  Josephine,  who  had 
bad  ones,  hid  hers.  All  seemed  to  be  going  gaily,  when  suddenly 
Junot  fell  back,  his  eyes  closed.  .  .  .  He  had  displaced  a 
bandage ;  the  blood  from  his  wound  "  was  flowing  through  the 
sleeve  as  if  through  a  gutter."  He  fainted  away — and  recovered, 
to  find  his  orderly  re-arranging  the  bandages  and  all  three  ladies 
attending  to  him,  Paulette  with  stains  of  blood  on  her  dress — 
frightened,  but  picturesquely  brave.  "This  is  the  happiest 
moment  of  my  life,"  gasped  the  gallant  Junot. 

If  Leclerc  did  not  shout  with  laughter  at  this,  he  must  have 
been  indeed  too  grave  for  any  pretty  lady  to  be  faithful  to. 

Not  long  afterwards,  at  Milan,  Pauline's  first  (and  only)  child 
was  born — a  son,  called  Dermide,  name* chosen  by  his  godfather. 
Napoleon,  who,  as  everyone  knows,  adored  Ossian.  She  then 
went  to  Paris,  where  her  closest  friends  were  the  Permon  family. 
Madame  Permon  was  beautiful  and  intriguing — her  salon  was 
more  frequented  by  men  than  by  women  ;  "  and  more  by  *  men  ' 
than  by  husbands  !  "  She  was  very  kind,  and  had  been  notably 
so  to  the  Bonaparte  family.f  Pauline  went  there  a  great  deal. 
She  was  now  in  the  full  development  of  her  beauty — "  at  the 
head  of  the  squadron  of  pretty  women  of  her  time."  Let  us  try 
to  see  her  in  detail.  "Of  medium  height,  with  a  marvellous 
pink-and-white  complexion,  sparkling  eyes,  black  hair,  Grecian 
profile,  and  such  a  perfectly-formed  body  that  she  sat  as  nude 
model  to  Canova  for  his  Venus  Vincitrix.''  .  .  .  But  lovely  to 
look  at  was  all  she  was.     She  was  entirely  without  aspiration, 

*  Josephine  had  a  singular  whim  of  dressing  this  maid  exactly  like 
herself,  and  having  her  at  table  with  her. 

t  Her  daughter  Laure  in  later  life  married  Junot,  and  became  Duchesse 
d'Abrantes — author  of  the  well-known  memoirs. 


o  > 


I 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  185 

fine  taste,  moral  qualities,  virtue — and  she  had  no  intelligence  to 
speak  of.  Reine  des  colifichets :  that  was  her  title — Queen  of 
Gew-gaws.  "  Her  diplomacy  consisted  in  fixing  the  respective 
merits  of  almond-paste,  rose-water-paste,  and  cucumber  pom- 
made."  "  A  woman  to  the  tips  of  her  rosy  finger-nails,"  remarks 
Arthur  Levy ;  and  Masson :  "  She  was  so  much  the  more  la 
femme  that  with  her  the  faults  common  to  women  reached  their 
highest  development,  while  her  beauty  attained  a  perfection 
which  may  justly  be  called  unexampled." 

These  judgments  are  amusing  in  their  complacent  masculi- 
nity ;  but  it  is  difficult  to  believe  that  in  Pauline  Borghese  even 
the  Frenchmen  of  that  day  could  have  discovered  .the  Essential 
Woman.  It  is  idle  to  discuss  her  character.  "  She  knew  nothing 
except  la  mode."  Let  us  dress  her  up,  then  ;  let  us  "  present " 
her,  for  instance,  at  Madame  Permon's  grand  ball  at  the  Rue 
Sainte- Croix.  Everyone  went  to  it.  The  jmnesse  doree  of 
Paris  sent  the  pick  of  their  basket ;  among  the  dandies  present 
were  two  future  lovers  of  Pauline — Montbreton  and  Montrond. 
.  .  .  She  took  the  occasion  very  seriously.  Not  a  syllable  was 
breathed  of  what  she  was  to  wear ;  her  milliner,  her  hairdresser, 
were  sworn  to  secrecy.  She  asked  her  hostess  to  let  her  dress  at 
Rue  Sainte- Croix,  so  that  she  might  appear  absolutely  fresh  and 
uncrushed.  The  rooms  were  almost  full  when  she  entered.  "  Ce 
fut  un  eblouissement !  "  The  music  stopped  for  a  moment.  The 
air  was  murmurous  with  admiration.  ...  How  the  little  heart  of 
the  Queen  of  Gew-gaws  must  have  stirred  !  Do  not  grudge  her 
that  joy — for  nothing  else  in  the  world  could  have  given  it  to 
her. 

And  the  dress }  "  It  was  of  Indian  muslin,  the  finest  pro- 
curable ;  the  hem  was  bordered  with  gold  palm-leaves,  four  or 
five  fingers  high  ;  four  bands,  smooth,  and  spotted  like  a  leopard's 
skin,  were  wound  about  her  head  and  supported  her  hair.  These 
in  their  turn  supported  little  bunches  of  gold  grapes.  She  had 
copied  the  coiffure  of  a  Bacchante  at  the  Louvre ! "  For 
ornaments  she  wore  cameos  everywhere ;  and  "  beneath  her  two 
little  breasts,  which  seemed  ready  to  escape  like  birds  from  their 
nest,"  she  wore  a  band  of  dull  gold,  fastened  by  a  magnificent 
engraved  jewel.     No  gloves — her  wrists,  arms,  and  hands  could 


186  PAULINE   BORGHESE 

afford  to  be  seen  without  them.  "  With  her  little  infantine 
astonished  look,  and  the  slender  breasts  beneath  the  thin  muslin 
— she  was  like  (in  expression,  that  is  !)  the  Jeune  fille  a  la  cruche 
cassie  of  Greuze." 

The  other  women  were  jealous — for  Pauline  could  not  render 
her  victories  popular.  Murmurs  of  "  adventuress  "  were  heard, 
but  the  hostess  hushed  them  up  ;  and  the  ball,  for  a  while,  went 
on  peaceably.  But  one  lady  had  been  grievously  offended. 
This  was  Madame  de  Coutades,  who  had  had  a  little  court 
around  her  when  Pauline  came  in,  and  had  then  been  left 
suddenly  quite  alone.  It  was  not  to  be  endured  ;  the  lady  watched 
her  moment  for  revenge.  Soon  it  came.  Pauline  had  gone  into 
a  small  boudoir  and  there  was  lying  on  a  sofa,  displaying  her 
beauty,  when  in  came  Madame  de  Coutades.  She  put  up  her 
lorgnon.  Pauline  enjoyed  it — for  a  minute  or  two.  Then  a 
little  voice,  silvery  and  compassionate,  was  heard. 

"  What  a  pity !  She  would  be  so  lovely  if  it  weren't  for 
that." 

"  For  what  ?  "  said  the  gentleman  addressed. 

"  Don't  you  see  t  But  it's  so  remarkable !  One  can't  help 
seeing ! " 

The  beauty  on  the  sofa  was  certainly  not  enjoying  this.  Her 
colour  began  to  mount,  her  eyes  to  grow  troubled :  what  could  be 
the  matter  ?     She  listened  with  all 

"  Her  ears  !     If  /  had  ears  like  that,  I'd  cut  them  off !  " 

Poor  Pauline  was  quite  naive  in  this  hour  of  bitterness.  She 
wept,  she  fainted — Madame  de  Coutades  was  revenged  indeed. 

.  The  ears  were  not  so  very  bad.  They  were  only  flat,  not 
delicately  tinted,  not  the  proverbial  "  rosy  shell " — but  from  that 
moment  nobody  could  think  of  anything  else.  Their  owner  left 
early.  She  had  been  wounded  in  the  only  vital  part  she  had — 
her  vanity ;  and  the  blow  left  its  mark  for  ever.  From  that  day 
she  became  less  indulgent,  less  good-natured,  more  impatient — 
and  she  always  did  her  hair  low  over  her  ears  ! 

Of  anecdotes  like  this,  the  story  of  her  life  is  composed.  Her 
dresses  are  more  important  than  her  lovers — she  had  an  almost 
equal  number  of  both ;  but  the  frocks  were  distinguished,  and 
the  men  were  not. 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  187 

In  1800,  Leclerc  was  made  General  of  the  Army  which 
Napoleon  sent  to  support  Spain  against  Portugal..  He  lost  his 
head  completely,  fancied  himself  a  second  "  Petit  Caporal/' 
imitated  the  master  in  manner  and  even  in  dress — used  to  wear 
the  long  grey  coat  and  the  famous  hat !  He  made  no  success  in 
Portugal  ;  and  his  brother-in-law  then  despatched  him  to  San 
Domingo,  to  quell  a  negro-rising  there.  Pauline  was  ordered  to 
accompany  him.  She  struggled  vainly  ;  then,  accepting  her  fate, 
proceeded  to  order  "  mountains  of  pretty  clothes,  pyramids  of 
hats." 

"  There  won't  be  room  ;  they  can't  all  go,"  said  Leclerc,  after 
the  manner  of  husbands. 

"  Well,  if  tliey  don't,  /  won't,"  answered  Madame,  after  the 
manner  of  wives.     Leclerc  made  room  for  them. 

On  the  whole,  it  was  not  so  bad.  During  the  voyage  she 
was  surrounded  by  flatterers  ;  there  were  two  poets,  who  sang 
her  charms  in  fluent  verse,  and  poor  dear  old  Freron  was  there, 
going  to  the  same  place.  .  .  .  No  doubt  he  came  in  for  some 
consolation. 

Leclerc  was  an  inefficient  commander  ;  finally,  things  became 
so  stormy  that  it  was  thought  well  for  the  ladies  to  leave  the 
island.  Pauline  refused.  "  I  will  not  embark  except  with  my 
husband.  I  will  die  sooner.  You  other  women  can  cry,  if  you 
want  to.  You  are  not  like  me — the  sister  of  Bonaparte." 
Orders  were  sent  by  Leclerc  to  embark  her  by  force  if  necessary  ; 
and  it  was  not  till  force  was  used  that  she  consented.  They 
reached  the  place  of  embarkation — and  just  as  they  did  so,  an 
aide-de-camp  came  hurrying  to  say  that  the  negroes  had  been 
defeated.  "  I  knew  I  should  not  go  on  board ! "  cried  triumphant 
Pauline.  "  And  now  we  will  return  to  the  Residency."  Sceptical 
Turquan  believes  not  in  these  heroics,  but  they  have  taken  their 
place  in  history.  Perhaps  she  really  declaimed  them :  certainly 
she  adored  Napoleon — her  love  for  him  is  the  one  genuine  thing 
in  her  life.  Soeur  de  Bonaparte :  she  had  just  enough  imagina- 
tion to  realise  what  that  meant.  The  speeches  need  not  ring 
quite  true  to  be  believed  in. 

In  1802,  Leclerc  fell  ill,  and  died  between  the  ist  and  2nd  of 
November.     Pauline  never  left  his  side,  although  she  too  was  ill 


188  PAULINE   BORGHESE 

— not  with  cholera,  as  he  was,  but  with  the  consequences  of  her 
too-dissipated  life  beneath  a  tropical  sun.  After  his  death,  she 
came  back  to  France  with  the  little  Dermide  and  Leclerc's 
embalmed  body  !  She  had  had  a  magnificent  cedar-wood  coffin 
made  for  "  her  mummy,"  as  the  Duchesse  d'Abrantes  called  it ; 
and  she  added  to  this  tribute  the  still  more  striking  one  of 
cutting  off  all  her  hair,  placing  it  on  his  head,  and  covering  the 
whole  with  a  hood.  "  A  sacrifice  to  her  dead  husband ! ' 
Napoleon  drily  remarked  when  he  heard  of  it.  "  She  knows  her 
hair  must  fall  out  after  her  illness,  and  will  be  longer  and 
thicker  for  being  cut  short." 

She  was  not  at  all  pleased  at  leaving  San  Domingo.  "  Here, 
I  reign  like  Josephine — I  am  the  first  lady  in  the  land  ; "  and 
Paris,  in  mourning,  was  not  to  her  taste.  She  looked  lovely, 
though  she  was  still  ailing ;  her  widow's  weeds  were  most 
becoming — but  Napoleon  kept  a  strict  eye  upon  her.  It  was 
very  dull !  She  amused  herself  by  consulting  a  fortune-teller, 
who  used  to  come  to  her  very  often  * — a  little  untidy  woman  "  with 
common  expressions,"  whose  method  was  to  break  the  white  of 
an  Ggg  into  a  bowl  of  water.  This  she  would  stir  up  with  a 
knitting-needle,  and  according  to  the  size  and  shape  of  the 
fragments  that  broke  away,  she  interpreted  the  future.  (Belief 
in  this  kind  of  thing  ran  in  the  family — witness  Napoleon's 
famous  Book  of  Fate.)  White  of  egg  is  proverbially 
monotonous ;  Pauline  soon  announced  that  if  she  could  not 
see  her  friends,  she  would  commit  suicide.  It  was  histoire  de 
toilette  again,  for  she  had  been  seeing  lovers ;  but  dress  was  in 
reality  the  ruling  passion  of  her  life. 

Among  the  lovers  were  Lafont,  an  actor  of  the  Theatre 
Frangais  ;  Colonel  Jules  Canouville,  "  one  of  those  adorable 
scamps  who  are  the  darlings  of  all  women,"  and  Prince 
Camillo  Borghese,  lately  come  from  Rome  to  Paris.  He  was 
good-looking  in  the  taste  of  the  period — had  black  whiskers  and 
curly  hair,  was  a  superb  whip,  a  fine  dancer,  good-natured, 
genial.  .  .  .  But  he  "walked  absurdly,"  and — though  this 
probably  did  not  distress  Pauline — he  was  an  utter  fool.  His 
father  had  been  one  of  the  finest  connoisseurs  of  his  day  ;  the 
*  To  the  H6tel  Marbeuf,  Joseph's  house. 


PAULINE  BORGHESE  189 

Borghese  Palace  at  Rome  contained  pictures,  statues,  art- 
treasures  of  every  kind.  The  Borghese  were  immensely  rich, 
but  Camillo,  "though  extravagant  for  himself,  was  economical 
for  others." 

General  Leclerc's  widow  and  he  pleased  one  another  at  first 
sight ;  they  are  said  to  have  had  intimate  relations  before 
marriage — relations  of  which  Napoleon  heard,  and  forthwith 
insisted  upon  the  ceremony.  Gossip  had  much  to  whisper : 
phrases  were  flying.  .  ,  .  "  Se  donner  a  Borghese  Hait  ne  se 
donner  a  personnel  ...  It  was  attributed  to  ambition  on  both 
sides  when  they  were  married  in  November,  1805.*  Borghese 
wished  to  be  connected  with  the  First  Consul  ;  Pauline  thought 
it  would  be  charming  to  be  a  Princess,  and  to  own  the  priceless 
Borghese  diamonds.  She  could  show  them  to  Josephine !  She 
did.     It  was  one  of  the  great  events  of  her  life. 

For  days  she  hesitated  over  her  toilette.  At  last  green  velvet 
was  decided  on  :  it  would  show  off  the  diamonds  so  well.  The 
diamonds,  poor  things !  were  shown  off  with  a  vengeance :  they 
were  stuck  on  wherever  there  was  anything  for  them  to  stick  to — 
dress,  head,  neck,  arms,  hands :  it  was  a  veritable  armour  of 
diamonds.  She  looked  in  the  glass  and  wept  for  joy.  "  If 
vanity  and  spite,  fully  gratified,  can  make  a  woman  happy, 
Pauline  was  the  most  blissful  of  her  sex  as  she  drove  out  to 
St.  Cloud."  But  at  St.  Cloud  also,  things  had  been  taken 
seriously.  Josephine  had  heard  of  the  green  velvet ;  she  had 
had  her  drawing-room  re-decorated  entirely  in  blue,  "so  as  to 
kill  the  effect."  She  had  heard  of  the  diamonds  too :  she  wore 
not  a  morsel  of  jewellery  herself  To  our  imagination  it  is 
Josephine,  and  not  the  little  parvenue  in  green  velvet,  who 
makes  the  picture.  She  was  a  most  attractive  woman,  with  a 
beautiful  figure,  simple  and  stately  manners,  an  exceedingly 
lovely  voice — and  she  wore  that  day  a  dress  of  Indian  muslin, 
with  a  broad  hem  of  gold  tissue,  very  expensive  in  its  consummate 
simplicity.  The  corsage  was  draped  on  the  shoulders  with  two 
lions'  heads  in  gold  enamelled  with  black,  and  for  belt  she 
wore  a  flat  stiff  circlet  of  gold,  fastened  by  a  similar  lion's  head. 

*  The  wedding  was  celebrated  without  any  pomp  at  Joseph's  country- 
house,  in  the  absence  of  Napoleon. 


190  PAULINE  BORGHESE 

Her  lovely  arms  were  bare.  .  .  .  Exquisite.  And,  by  contrast, 
with  what  a  blaring  vulgarity  do  the  six  horses,  the  torch-bearers, 
of  the  ridiculous  Pauline  blaze  into  the  court-yard,  do  the 
diamonds  blaze,  shortly  afterwards,  into  the  room !  "  She 
looked  radiant " — but  it  was  a  radiancy  of  opera-bouffe  ;  all 
the  honours  belong  to  the  softly-gowned,  silver-voiced  lady  of 
the  house,  who,  further  to  underline  her  moral  victory,  "  spoke 
of  the  diamonds."  The  visit  passed  off  quite  agreeably :  they 
kissed  on  parting.  .  .  .  Well,  well ! 

After  this,  Pauline  went  with  her  husband  to  Rome.  There 
they  inhabited  the  Palazzo  Borghese,  called  the  Piano  Borghese, 
because  in  shape  it  resembled  a  piano.  Did  the  Queen  of  Gew- 
gaws appreciate  the  incomparable  treasures  which  surrounded 
her  there  i* — all  in  later  years,  acquired  by  Napoleon  in  a  "  forced 
sale,"  perhaps  the  most  signal  instance  of  his  wholesale  plunder- 
ing on  record  ! 

Dermide  Leclerc  died  in  this  year  (1806).  There  is  a  legend 
that  Pauline  insisted  on  burying  him  with  her  own  hands,  but 
Masson  discredits  it.  The  child  died  at  Frascati,  while  his 
mother  was  at  some  distant  bathing-place,  and  she  never  knew 
of  his  illness  until  he  was  dead.  The  Leclerc  family  accused 
her  of  having  been  the  cause  of  his  death,  for  she  had  been 
urgently  counselled  not  to  take  him  to  Italy.  He  was  only  six 
years  old,  "  so  she  did  not  wear  black  for  him." 


In  1804,  Napoleon  declared  himself  Emperor  of  the  French. 
The  family  assembled  at  Paris  for  this  apotheosis,  with  the 
exceptions  of  Madame  Mere  and  Lucien,  with  whom  Napoleon 
had  quarrelled  on  account  of  his  marriage.* 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Pauline  and  her  husband  ceased  to 
live  together.  She  had  never  been  really  well  since  her  marriage. 
For  a  while  she  lived  at  Petit  Trianon,  and  spent  her  day  in 
grumbling  about  everything,  and  worrying  her  servants  to  death  ; 
yet  all  her  efforts,  it  would  seem,  had  not  availed  to  get  her  house 

*  Although  his  mother  was  not  present,  Napoleon  ordered  David  to 
include  her  in  his  great  Coronation-picture,  thus  falsifying  history  at  his 
pleasure. 


PAULINE  BORGHESE  191 

in  order,  for  Napoleon  one  day  paid  a  surprise- visit,  and  found  an 
oil-bottle  where  no  oil-bottle  should  have  been.  "  Point  d'ordre 
ici:  Vargenterie  trained'  he  thundered  forth,  and  the  much- 
nagged  servants  found  themselves  in  disgrace  again. 

Pauline  was  Princess  of  Guastalla  now.  Napoleon  had  bought 
the  title  for  her,  and  at  first  she  was  delighted.  But  too  soon 
the  truth  came  out :  Guastalla  was  a  wretched  village,  with  an 
insignificant  population.  Its  Princess  wept  bitterly.  "Princess, 
indeed !  Ruling  over  a  dirty  village,  and  the  pigs  that  run  about 
it !  "  .  .  .  Nothing  pleased  her  just  then  :  she  was  so  prodigiously 
bored  by  Borghese!  What  could  Napoleon  do  about  that  for 
her }  He  did  something  practical :  he  gave  Borghese  an 
important  military  appointment  which  took  him  right  away. 
Instantly,  Petit  Trianon  became  the  most  adorable  place  on  earth. 
She  stayed  there  the  whole  summer,  going  then  to  her  palace 
in  the  Faubourg  St.  Honore  at  Paris,  where  she  entertained 
sumptuously.  Life  was  all  smiling  and  gay,  when  suddenly  that 
husband  of  hers  had  the  impertinence  to  come  so  near  as 
Luneville.  Intolerable — would  he  expect  to  come  to  her  parties  } 
He  did,  and  he  came.  From  that  hour,  boredom  descended  upon 
his  Princess  again.  Everything  he  did  got  on  her  nerves. 
"Paulette,"  indeed!  She  would  not  be  called  Paulette  any 
longer.  Pauline  was  her  name :  the  Princess  Pauline — not 
Borghese.  It  was  from  her  own  Principality  that  she  derived  her 
title.  ...  At  last  Borghese  went  back  to  Rome.  She  breathed 
again.  "  He  began  to  lead  a  bachelor's  life."  .  .  .  All  was  well, 
so  long  as  he  would  keep  out  of  her  sight ! 

Who  were  the  lovers  at  this  time }  There  had  been  a  brief 
interlude  with  one  Blangini,  a  fashionable  song-writer  and  singer. 
She  took  a  fancy  to  him,  and  made  him  Director  of  her  Music. 
Josephine  instantly  appointed  him  her  Chamber- Composer.  He 
was  commanded  by  Pauline  to  choose  between  them.  He  chose 
her ;  a  smile  was  his  reward.  "  Later  on,  he  was  to  have 
others." 

A  far  more  serious  business  was  her  intrigue  with  Louis- 
Philippe-Auguste  de  Forbin,  very  good-looking,  and  an 
amateur  painter  of  talent,  actually  a  pupil  of  David.  He  was 
really  brilliant,  audacious,  *'  interesting  " — a  halo  of  misfortunes 


192  PAULINE  BORGHESE 

and  of  debts  around  him  ;  a  halo  of  love-affairs  too,  but  they  all 
faded  before  the  glory  of  this  one,  and  Pauline  cared  more  for 
him  than  she  ever  cared  for  any  other  man.  Chateaubriand  met 
him  just  then  at  Geneva,  in  a  state  of  beatitude.  "  Forbin  walks 
on  air !  He's  a  good  fellow,  but  so  disgustingly  happy ! "  .  .  . 
She  was  quite  mellowed  by  her  love ;  dress  lost  a  little  of  its 
importance ;  she  was  very  well  and  very  happy,  although  before 
Forbin  appeared,  she  had  been  much  preoccupied  with  her 
health.  Milk-baths  had  threatened  to  become  her  mania.  She 
had  begun  with  two  a  week — each  took  ten  pints  of  milk,  and 
cost  six  francs — but  the  habit  encroached,  till  she  could  not  do 
with  less  than  one  a  day,  especially  when  travelling.  On  one  of 
her  journeys,  she  found  herself  at  Bar,  where  her  brother-in-law, 
M.  Leclerc,  was  Governor.  He  was  warned  that  milk-baths  would 
be  required.  They  were  difficult  to  arrange  for  in  a  small  place : 
all  the  soldiers  of  the  Departmental  Guard  were  sent  to  neigh- 
bouring villages,  and  each  came  back,  triumphant,  with  his  pot  of 
milk.     It  was  just  being  warmed  when  she  arrived. 

"  How  about  my  bath  }  " 

"  It  is  ready,"  replied  Leclerc  proudly. 

"  And  the  douche  ? " 

"  That  is  more  difficult.     We  have  no  appliances." 

"  Oh,  have  a  hole  made  in  the  ceiling  just  above  the  bath. 
Forgive  my  troubling  you,  dear  brother,  but  it  is  necessary  for 
my  health." 

It  was  done  ;  "  and  for  long  afterwards,  the  room  smelt  like  a 
badly-kept  dairy." 

Forbin's  arrival  nipped  this  mania  in  the  bud.  When  she 
went  to  Paris  afterwards,  she  appointed  him  her  Chamberlain. 
Everything  went  through  his  hands,  "and  everything  stayed 
there."     That  is  the  last  we  hear  of  him. 

The  dress  question  assumed,  in  1807,  when  the  Court  was  at 
Fontainebleau,  a  fresh  importance.  There  was  a  great  deal  of 
hunting  ;  Napoleon  desired  that  the  ladies  should  have  a  special 
costume  for  this,  and  one  was  accordingly  designed  by  the 
sublime  Leroy.  It  consisted  of  a  long  velvet  coat,  and  a  dress  of 
embroidered  white  satin.  There  were  velvet  boots  to  match  the 
coat,  cap  also  to  match,  and  a  white  scarf.     Josephine's  set  wore 


PAULINE  BORGHESE  193 

amaranth  with  gold  embroidery ;  Hortense,  Queen  of  Holland's, 
blue  and  silver ;  the  Grand- Duchess  of  Berg  and  Cleves',  rose- 
colour  and  silver  ;  Pauline's,  mauve  and  silver.  The  cortege  may, 
to  the  profane,  suggest  a  circus-procession,  but  it  glittered  and 
glimmered  effectively  enough,  no  doubt,  amid  the  glades  of 
Fontainebleau. 

Thence  she  went  to  Nice.  Every  day  she  was  there,  boxes 
of  dresses,  hats,  chiffons  of  all  kinds  arrived  from  Paris.*  She 
had  a  lovely  villa ;  etiquette  was  laid  aside — she  told  piquante 
stories,  sang  Blangini's  songs,  fell  into  his  arms  after  singing  them, 
and  took  him  definitely  for  her  lover.  But  Napoleon  was 
watching.  It  was  in  this  year  (1808)  that  he  appointed  Borghese 
Governor- General  of  the  Departments  beyond  the  Alps,  and 
ordered  him  to  take  his  wife  with  him  to  Turin.  They  set  out. 
Seven  carriages  were  loaded  with  boxes ;  Pauline  herself  had  a 
superb  equipage,  and  she  insisted  upon  a  carrying-chair  as  well. 
"  They  could  take  her  up  and  down  the  hills  in  it."  The  feat  was 
loyally  attempted,  but  she  pronounced  the  sensation  unbearable. 
She  would  walk.  She  walked.  "  Oh,  it's  killing  me !  "  Groaning 
deeply,  she  got  back  into  the  carriage,  where  poor  worried 
Borghese  was  snatching  a  moment  of  tranquillity.  He  was 
obliged  to  get  out:  she  could  not  endure  to  be  crushed.  .  .  . 
Borghese  walked  most  of  the  way. 

When  they  reached  the  first  village  of  his  new  territory,  a 
fresh  complication  arose.  It  was  a  question  of  precedence  ; 
Pauline  had  been  thinking,  and  now  she  announced  the  result. 
"  As  the  sister  of  the  French  Emperor,  she  was  superior  in  rank 
to  her  husband,  who  owed  his  post  as  Governor-General  to 
Napoleon."  If  any  addresses  were  presented,  it  would  be  for 
her  to  make  reply.  Borghese  refused  to  give  way.  When  the 
Mayor  arrived  with  the  address,  he  attempted  to  speak — she 
interrupted  him.  The  Mayor  waited,  while  the  Prince  and 
Princess  squabbled.  "  Finally,  their  Royal  Highnesses  drove  off 
without  making  any  reply  at  all." 

*  Napoleon  said  at  St.  Helena  that  if  he  had  known  of  her  boundless 
extravagance  at  this  time,  he  would  have  put  an  end  to  it.     "  Spoken  for 
posterity,"  comments  the  sardonic  Turquan.     "He  must  have  known,  for 
he  had  a  spy  at  Nice,  expressly  to  watch  Pauline," 
O 


194  PAULINE   BORGHESE 

The  Turin  experiment  was  short-lived.  She  had  a  brilliant 
Court ;  she  was  the  loveliest  woman  there  ;  her  husband  left  her 
in  peace ;  there  were  visits  of  monarchs,  receptions,  dinners  ;  her 
cook  had  the  pay  of  a  General  of  Division  ;  she  had  two  enormous 
negroes,  with  ostrich  feathers  on  their  heads,  to  stand  behind  her 
chair — and  yet  she  was  not  happy.  The  mere  proximity  of 
Borghese  was  fatal.  She  must  leave  Turin.  Napoleon  refused 
permission.  She  rolled  on  the  carpet  with  rage,  took  every  drug 
she  could  think  of  to  make  herself  ill ;  finally  achieved  a  grand 
night-alarm  at  the  country  seat,  Stupinigi.  Doctor  Vastapani, 
from  Turin,  ordered  an  immediate  change  of  air :  Aix-en-Savoie, 
for  choice.  He  was  genuinely  alarmed,  but  not  another  soul  in 
the  house  believed  in  her  illness. 

She  got  to  Aix-en-Savoie,  and  thence  to  Paris.  Napoleon, 
always  indulgent,  merely  demanded  from  her  a  promise  to  behave 
herself.  She  did  promise,  but  she  did  not  behave  herself.  She 
would  receive  men's  visits  in  her  bath — the  mitigating  circumstance 
being  that  the  men  were  almost  invariably  her  lovers !  *  She  sat 
for  Canova's  famous  nude  statue.  .  .  .  "She  had  something  to 
show,  in  short — and  she  showed  it."  Her  love-affair  at  this  time 
was  a  richauff^.  Jules  de  Canouville  reappeared,  and  they  fell  in 
love  again.  It  was  a  violent  attachment — and  a  very  open  one. 
There  were  fresh  stories  every  day.  One  about  a  dentist's  visit 
had  an  immense  success.  He  came  one  morning  to  attend 
Pauline,  and  found,  lying  on  a  sofa  in  her  dressing-room,  a 
young  man  who  said,  "Take  great  care,  sir.  I  prize  my 
Paulette's  lovely  teeth  beyond  anything." 

"  Do  not  be  uneasy,  mon  princel'  replied  the  dentist,  touched 
by  the  marital  solicitude.  He  was  to  be  still  further  moved,  for 
at  the  critical  moment,  the  lady  refused  to  undergo  the  ordeal. 
The  young  man  encouraged  her :  it  was  nothing  once  you  had 
made  up  your  mind. 

"  Very  well  then.     You  have  one  out  first." 

"  But  I  have  nothing  the  matter  with  my  teeth ! " 

"  You  must  have  one  out,  or  I  won't." 

"  Mon  prince  "  consented.     Quel  mart !    The   dentist  could 

*  Constant  (Napoleon's  valet)  says  in  his  Memoirs  that  he  did  not  like 
even  secretly  to  think  of  the  things  Pauline  used  to  do. 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  195 

not  say  enough  about  him.  "  One  had  heard  there  were  troubles 
between  the  Prince  and  Princess — how  people  slandered  the 
great ! "  No  one  undeceived  him  ;  but  that  evening  Paris  was 
dying  of  inextinguishable  laughter. 


It  IS  almost  a  relief  to  turn  from  the  Queen  of  Gew-gaws  to 
tragedy ;  and  tragedy  was  upon  Josephine  then.  Napoleon,  from 
the  time  he  became  Emperor  in  1804,  had  had  his  heart  set  upon 
founding  a  dynasty.  The  first  step  was  to  divorce  his  childless 
wife.  In  her  despair,  Josephine  committed  the  one  truly  infamous 
action  of  her  erring  life — she  allowed  to  be  spread  abroad  those 
terrible  rumours  with  regard  to  her  husband  and  his  sister  which 
must  be  touched  upon,  however  reluctantly,  in  any  narrative 
concerned  with  Pauline  Borghese. 

Thiers,  Fouche,  Madame  de  R^musat,  Louis  Favre  (in  his 
curious  hook,  Les  Confidences  d'un  vieux Palais :  Le  LtLxembourg) 
— all  speak  as  if  they  believed  these  rumours,  Fouche  especially. 
But  Fouche  was  Josephine's  creature :  *  his  testimony  may  be 
set  aside.  The  Monnier  MSS.  speak  of  them  as  a  matter  of 
common  knowledge.  Arthur  Levy  denies  them  utterly ;  Sir 
Walter  Scott  also  repels  them.  .  .  .  Pauline's  love  for  her  brother 
was  the  only  feeling  not  entirely  selfish  that  she  ever  knew ;  and 
he  returned  it — she  was  always  his  favourite  sister.  He  delighted 
in  her  caprices,  the  little  squabbles  she  was  for  ever  bringing  about 
— they  quarrelled  continually,  but  quickly  made  it  up  again  ;  he 
gave  her  more  beautiful  presents  than  he  ever  gave  to  Eliza  or 
Caroline  ...  it  was  one  of  those  relationships,  rare  in  real  life, 
which  are  the  constant  theme  of  romance ;  but  when  romance 
invades  reality,  it  is  usually  but  too  plainly  shown  its  place. 

When  in  1809,  the  Emperor  decided  to  divorce  Josephine, 
Pauline  was  overjoyed,  and  took  no  pains  to  conceal  it.  But  she 
did  not  like  Marie- Louise  either.  Not  long  after  the  marriage, 
Napoleon  detected  her  "  making  one  of  those  gestures  which  the 
people  apply  to  credulous  and  deceived  married  folk."     He  rose 

•  She  used  to  give  him  a  thousand  francs  a  day  to  spy  upon  her 
husband. 


196  PAULINE  BORGHESE 

in  anger,  but  the  naughty  Princess  made  off  hastily.     She  never 
reappeared  at  Court  after  that  day. 

What  remains  to  tell  ?  The  tale  of  her  lovers — Montrond 
Brack,  the  austere  General  Drouot,  Dachaud  ;  of  her  chiffons — "  a 
cap  of  Honiton  lace  with  bows  of  rose-ribbon,  in  which  she  looked 
as  pretty  as  an  angel "  ;  of  her  improprieties — the  famous  anecdote 
of  her  negro -servant,  Paul,  whose  function  it  was  to  put  her  into 
her  bath.  Remonstrated  with  on  this,  she  answered,  with  her 
infantile  air,  "  Est-ce  que  vous  appelez  cette  chose-la,  un  homme  ?  " 
but,  to  ensure  a  perfect  propriety,  she  arranged  that  he  should 
marry  her  head-housemaid,  continuing  his  duties  to  herself.  .  .  . 

In  1 8 14,  came  the  Fall  of  the  Empire.  She  was  at  Luc  when 
Napoleon  abdicated,  and  knew  nothing  of  it  until,  on  April  26th, 
at  two  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  a  courier  came  to  say  that  the 
Emperor  was  arriving  at  her  house.  Before  he  appeared,  the 
Commissioners  of  the  Allied  Powers  drove  up,  and  told  her 
the  shattering  news. 

She  cried,  "  He  must  be  dead  !  *' 

"  No,  he  is  not  dead." 

"  How  could  he  live  through  this  ? "  She  fainted — and  came 
back  to  consciousness  to  hear  a  raging  mob  shouting  beneath  her 
windows,  "  A  has  le  tyran  !  " 

Just  then  he  arrived.  She  tried  to  get  up  to  receive  him. 
She  could  not — she  fell  back  fainting  again.  He  entered.  She 
saw  that  he  wore  the  Austrian  uniform !  He  had  put  it  on  to 
save  himself  from  the  mob — but  to  her  the  sight  was  beyond 
endurance.  She  refused  to  embrace  him  while  he  had  it  on.  He 
went  and  changed  it.  .  .  . 

He  did  not  allow  her  to  join  him  in  Elba  until  August.  She 
and  Madame  Mere  were  with  him  there,  living  the  old  frivolous 
life,  until  his  escape  on  February  26th,  181 5.  She  gave  him  all 
her  diamonds  in  case  of  his  need  :  he  had  them  with  him  in  his 
carriage  at  Waterloo.*  She  never  failed  him  ;  the  other  sisters 
never  stretched  out  a  finger  to  help.  Vanity  may  have  had  its 
part  in  her  adoration,  but  vanity  has  its  victories  no  less  than 
virtue ;  in  all  her  relations  to  Napoleon,  let  us  rejoice  to  find  no 
wavering  nor  shadow  of  turning. 

♦  They  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  English. 


PAULINE   BORGHESE  197 

She  was  in  Rome  when  he  died — living  with  Madame  M^re 
in  the  Falconieri  Palace.  She  had  been  too  ill  to  go  to  him  at  St. 
Helena,  but  she  had  tried  to  sell  everything  valuable  that  she 
possessed  to  help  him.  Doctor  Antommarchi  brought  the 
detailed  news.  He  had  found  Marie-Louise  at  the  theatre  ; 
Louis,  ex-King  of  Holland,  had  refused,  on  the  ground  of  deep 
grief,  to  receive  him  ;  Pauline  saw  him  without  a  moment's  delay. 
"  She  wept  bitterly  on  hearing  all  the  particulars  of  that  long 
agony."  .  .  . 

In  1823,  her  own  end  drew  near.  She  was  sent  from  Rome 
to  her  country-house  near  the  Porta  Pia ;  later,  was  taken  to 
Florence.  Before  her  death,  on  June  9th,  1825,  at  the  age  of 
forty-four,  she  was  reconciled  to  Prince  Borghese. 

The  closing  scene  ? 

She  had  a  mirror  brought  to  her  when  she  was  dying,  and  the 
Queen  of  Gew-gaws  looked  at  herself  for  the  last  time. 

"  I  am  ready  to  die.  I  am  still  beautiful.".  .  .  It  was  her 
religion.  She  held  the  mirror — symbol  of  her  faith  !— in  her 
hand  until  the  end. 


LOUISE   OF   STOLBERG 

COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY 
1753-1824 

CHARLES  EDWARD  STUART,  dissolute  and  drunken 
British  Pretender  ;  Vittorio  Alfieri,  austere  and  brilliant 
Italian  poet ;  Francois  Xavier  Fabre,  cheerful  and 
mediocre  French  painter — these  are  the  men  who  each  in  turn 
possessed  Louise  of  Stolberg's  life.  Did  woman  ever  choose  more 
oddly  contrasted  types  ?  Choose :  the  word  arrests  us.  When,  in 
reality,  di  d  she  choose  at  all  ?  Very  certainly  not,  when  at  twenty 
she  was  married — by  France  and  her  foolish,  worthless  mother — 
to  the  wreck  of  what  once  had  been  Bonnie  Prince  Charlie.  And 
when  Vittorio  Alfieri  stormed  into  her  life }  Scarcely,  one 
divines  ;  for  he  dominated  her  then  as  he  dominated  her  to  the 
end  of  his  days.  Again,  when  Fabre's  hour  arrived,  one  feels  that 
nothing  so  definite  as  "  choice  "  any  longer  remained  as  a  possi- 
bility for  her,  so  far  as  the  feelings  were  concerned.  Into  the 
liaison  with  him  she  drifted  aimlessly,  possessed  as  she  was  by  a 
sort  of  lazy  dependence  upon  masculinity  for  the  conduct  of  her 
affairs,  and,  for  the  rest,  with  but  one  motive  really  surviving  in 
her  at  all — the  desire  to  be  the  most  distinguished  salonist  of  her 
day,  a  vanity  like  another,  wherein  genuine  culture  and  the 
instinct  to  arrange,  to  meddle,  were  oddly  intertwined.  Hers  was 
the  beauU  dn  diable  in  a  wider  sense  than  the  ordinary.  Not  only 
was  her  charm  of  appearance  dependent  on  its  freshness,  but  her 
charm  of  mind  seems  to  have  been  so  as  well.  Like  the  form, 
which  grew  heavy  and  dowdy — like  the  face,  which  lost  expres- 
sion and  mobility — so  the  mind  became  ponderous,  pedantic, 
obstinate  ;   she  tyrannised  where  formerly  she  had  assimilated, 

198 


LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG  199 

"  she  would  lose  friends  sooner  than  concede  a  point."  .  .  .  But 
let  us  introduce  her  in  all  the  grace,  vivacity,  and  flexibility  of  her 
youth,  which  nevertheless,  from  twenty  onwards,  was  the  saddest  _ 
period  of  her  life. 


After  France's  insult  to  Charles  Edward  in  1748 — when  he 
had  been  arrested,  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  flung  into  prison,  to 
be  liberated  only  through  the  force  of  popular  indignation — 
France  had  utterly  ignored  him,  though  Louis  XV.,  indeed, 
continued  to  pay  him  his  pension,  which  he,  while  professing  loud 
hostility  to  the  King  and  the  country,  eagerly  accepted.  But 
suddenly  towards  1772,  the  French  Ministry  fell  into  one  of  its 
recurrent  panics  about  the  extinction  of  the  House  of  Stuart. 
That  fallen  House  could  still  be  useful  to  France,  for  against 
England  a  Pretender  was  a  priceless  weapon.  .  .  .  The  Stuarts 
must  not  be  allowed  to  die  out !  But  unless  Charles  Edward 
could  be  induced  to  marry,  that  infallibly  would  happen  ;  for  had 
not  his  brother  Henry  become  a  priest  of  the  Roman  Church, 
while  all  that  he  himself  had  at  present  to  offer  was  an  illegitimate 
daughter !  "  Something  must  be  done,"  fussed  d'Aiguillon  ;  and 
so  Cousin  Fitzjames  (by  the  left  hand)  consented  to  take 
soundings.  Would  Cousin  Charles  marry  .?  A  pension  of  forty- 
thousand  crowns  if  he  would !  Hitherto  he  had  always  refused. 
This  time — the  pension  helping  him — he  consented,  hurried  to 
Paris  from  Avignon  (whither  he  had  retired  after  the  shame  of 
'48),  and  eagerly  agreed  to  every  suggestion  made  by  Versailles 
— that  is  to  say,  by  crafty,  scornful  d'Aiguillon  and  arrogant 
Cousin  Fitzjames,  as  proud  of  the  bar-sinister  which  made  him  a 
Stuart  as  any  legitimate  of  his  blameless  shield.  Cousin  Fitz- 
james' eldest  son  had  just  married  Princess  Caroline  of  Stolberg- 
Gedern — and  nothing  could  be  more  convenient  than  that 
Charles  should  marry  her  elder  sister  Louise,  the  nineteen-yeared 
Canoness  of  the  Abbey  of  Sainte  Wandru  at  Mons. 

Her  father  had  been  Prince  Gustavus-Adolphus  of  Stolberg- 
Gedern,  Prince  of  the  Empire,  who  had  died  in  the  Battle  of 
Leuthen ;  her  mother  was  Elizabeth-Philippine,  Countess  of 
Horn.     The  Stolbergs  were  illustrious  enough,  but  the  Horns 


200  LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

were  positively  dazzling,  allied  with  every  glittering  name  that 
ever  was :  Gonzagas  of  Mantua,  Colonnas,  Orsinis,  Medina- 
Coelis,  Lignes,  Croys,  Hohenzollerns,  Bruces !  .  .  .  Nevertheless, 
after  the  Prince's  death,  poor  Elizabeth-Philippine  had  to  pull  the 
devil  very  hard  indeed  by  the  tail.  Maria-Theresa,  Empress  of 
Austria,  that  kindliest  of  meddlers,  took  pity  on  her,  relieved  her 
of  some  of  the  pulling  by  giving  her  a  pension,  and  admitted  two 
of  her  four  girls  to  the  rich  and  vastly  exclusive  Chapter  of 
Sainte  Wandru  at  Mons. 

In  an  atmosphere  of  high  graceful  snobbery,  then,  had 
Louise  of  Stolberg  grown  up — an  atmosphere  "  where  the  source 
of  all  dignity,  jealousy,  and  triumph  was  greatness  of  birth  and 
connection."  A  cultured  creature  she — in  the  amateurish  fashion 
which  mostly  marks  illustrious  birth  in  its  dealings  with  art ;  but 
accomplished,  intelligent,  charming,  and  very  pretty,  with  dark 
hazel  eyes  and  golden  hair,  a  wild-rose  skin,  tip-tilted  nose, 
vivacious  and  sympathetic  expression.  Romantic,  too,  we  may 
guess  ;  filled  with  enthusiasm  for  noble  deeds,  with  sympathy  for 
misfortune  (and  oh,  how  especially  for  Royal  misfortune  !) — ripe, 
in  fact,  for  just  such  a  marriage  as  was  now  arranged  for  her  with 
no  consultation  of  herself,  and  acquiescent  quite  in  such  arrange- 
ment, for  along  the  road  which  leads  to  wedlock  Romance  had 
never  dared  to  stray.  A  husband  was  an  institution — and  over 
an  institution  even  schoolgirls  can  hardly  wax  sentimental.  But, 
indeed,  if  Sentiment  and  Romance  had  been  germane  at  all  to 
the  matter,  she  might  well  have  fancied  that  in  this  betrothal  they 
were  exquisitely  present. 

Charles  Edward  Stuart:  The  Young  Pretender:  Bonnie 
Prince  Charlie  :  those  names  spell  magic  still,  although  Louise  of 
Stolberg's  story  should  cure  us  of  illusion — does  cure  us,  while  we 
read.  But  the  illusion  is  too  deeply  interwoven  with  many 
things — with  truth,  for  one  thing  !  "  All  we  believed  was  true." 
.  .  .  And  so  (the  book  with  the  story  of  Louise  of  Stolberg  in  it 
laid  down)  forgetfulness  and  remembrance  come  again,  and  a 
Jacobite  song  can  once  more  turn  us  hot  and  cold  by  turns,  a 
picture  or  a  miniature  bring  the  pleasant  sentimental  sigh,  a 
brooch,  a  pair  of  paste  shoe-buckles  in  an  Edinburgh  dealer's 
window,  lure  us  in  to  touch  and  dream — oblivious,  in  our  reverie, 


PRINCESS   LOUISE  OF  STOLBERG,   COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING    BY    W.    READ,    AFTER   THE    PICTURE    BY    OZIAS    HUMl'HRY,    R.A. 


LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG  201 

of  the  bestial  creature  whom  in  reality  (if  they  belonged  to 
Charles  Edward's  later  years)  they  decorated,  a  creature  so 
remote  from  the  Prince  Charlie  of  our  fond  fingering  that  even 
a  dealer  in  antiques  could  invent  no  more  grotesque  deception ! 

He  was  fifty-two,  and  she  between  nineteen  and  twenty  when 
on  Good  Friday,  April  17,  1772,  they  were  married  at  Macerata, 
one  of  the  larger  towns  of  the  March  of  Ancona :  the  golden- 
haired,  wild-rose  maiden  and  the  gaunt  elderly  man  with  red, 
bloated  face,  made  redder  by  the  contrast  of  a  white  wig,  and  the 
reflection  from  a  crimson  silk  suit,  crossed  with  the  Ribbon  of  the 
Garter.  "  Dull,  thick,  silent-looking  lips,  of  purplish  red  scarce 
redder  than  the  skin  ;  pale-blue  eyes  tending  to  a  watery  grey- 
ness,  leaden,  vague,  sad,  but  with  angry  streakings  of  red  ;  some- 
thing inexpressibly  sad,  gloomy,  helpless,  vacant  and  debased  in 
the  whole  face  : "  so  Vernon  Lee  describes  him  for  us  from  a 
crayon  portrait  taken  at  the  time — and  it  needs  but  little  know- 
ledge of  human  nature  to  ask  ourselves  the  instant  question : 
W/io  will  be  Louise  of  Albany's  lover  f 

The  omen  of  the  wedding-day  was  loud  enough,  if  omens  had 
been  needed.  She  often  spoke  of  it  in  later  life :  "  the  sort  of 
marriage  that  might  be  looked  for  from  the  day  of  its  celebra- 
tion." But  not  days  nor  dates  it  was  which  could  alter  it,  though 
they  should  have  chosen  the  most  propitious  of  them  all.  .  .  . 
And  yet  at  the  beginning  things  were  not  so  very  ill.  Charmed 
into  some  shame,  some  decency — touched  perhaps  by  the  young 
innocence  and  grace — vain  certainly  of  the  little  bright  bride, 
Charles  Edward  made  an  effort.  For  the  earliest  few  months, 
he  kept  away  from  "  the  nasty  bottle "  (so  Brother  Henry,  in  a 
characteristic,  helpless  sort  of  phrase,  summed  up  his  drunken 
habits)  ;  he  made  himself  as  acceptable  as  he  now  could  be  to  a 
woman  ;  and  she,  innocent,  romantic,  yet  as  regarded  marriage 
endowed  with  all  the  common-sense  of  the  period — she  probably 
endured  all  disagreeables  with  the  sage  reflection  that  le  mariage 
Hait  comme  qa.  Disagreeable  enough  in  truth  it  must  all  have 
been — prosaic  enough,  dreary  enough.  That  Court-life  which 
even  at  its  best  is  penitential,  Louise  of  Albany  had  to  endure  at 
its  worst.  For  theirs  was  but  the  simulacrum  of  a  Court — a  lie, 
a  badly-told  tale  in  which  only  the  dull  parts  seemed  true.     They 


202  LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

were  King  and  Queen — but  they  had  no  Kingdom.  They  had  a 
Court — but  there  were  no  courtiers  in  it.  They  had  jewels — but 
no  crown  ;  etiquette — but  no  ceremonial ;  isolation — but  no 
power.  The  Pope,  the  King  of  France,  the  Grand-Duke  of 
Tuscany — all  refused  to  recognise  the  Count  of  Albany  as  King 
of  England,  and  he  refused  to  be  recognised  as  anything  else. 
Prince  of  Wales — yes  !  they  would  give  him  that,  if  he  would  be 
satisfied  with  that }  He  would  not — and  from  place  to  place  he 
wandered,  sulking.  First,  after  their  marriage,  it  was  Rome,  in 
the  Palace  which  closes  the  narrow  end  of  the  Square  Dei 
Santissimi  Apostoli.  And  so  the  little  bride — since  she  must  be 
called  Queen  of  Something ! — came  to  be  called  Queen  of  the 
Apostles.  She  found  Roman  society  very  dull,  as  she  was 
bound  to  find  any  society.  Those  brilliant  balls,  those  blithe 
intimate  evenings,  which  all  other  great  ladies  enjoyed,  Louise 
must  abjure  ;  only  to  theatres,  to  public  balls,  might  she  betake 
herself — always  haunted  by  the  husband,  always  watched  and 
checked,  for  Charles  Edward  was  already  showing  that  insensate 
jealousy  which,  later,  led  him  to  shadow  her  morning,  noon,  and 
night,  in  an  obsession  of  companionship  which,  even  to  an  adoring 
wife  from  the  most  desirable  of  husbands,  must  have  proved 
fatiguing,  enervating,  maddening. 

But  she  was  abnormally  sweet-tempered  ;  she  bore  it  all  with 
patience.  Her  room  could  be  entered  only  through  his  room,  for 
"  I  am  resolved  that  the  succession  shall  not  be  dubious,"  he 
would  chivalrously  say  ;  she  might  not  stir  out-of-doors  without 
him,  and  he  never  left  her  behind  when  he  drove  out,  or,  if  he  did, 
she  was  locked  into  her  room  .  .  .  yet  harmoniously,  almost 
gaily,  for  a  while  the  desperate  thing  went  on  !  Karl  Victor 
Bonstetten,  a  delightful  irresponsible  young  German,  went  to  pay 
his  respects  to  the  Queen  of  the  Apostles,  and  found  a  Queen  of 
Hearts  instead :  a  little  blooming,  captivating  Queen,  who  still 
could  laugh  at  her  husband's  famous  tale  of  the  '45,  when  he 
had  been  disguised  as  a  woman.  How  many  times  had  she 
heard  it  already,  young  Bonstetten  wondered,  listening  to  the 
trill  of  pretty  mirth.  .  .  .  "She  was  enough  to  turn  all  heads," 
he  wrote  in  his  Memoirs.  She  turned  his  permanently.  Forty- 
four  years  later  (when  he  was  seventy),  he  wrote  to   her  from 


LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

Rome :  "  I  never  pass  through  the  Apostles'  Square  without 
looking  up  at  that  balcony,  at  that  house,  where  I  saw  you  for 
the  first  time." 

Thus  the  initiatory  year  went  by — not  too  unendurably. 
For  all  the  difficulties,  she  did  succeed  in  drawing  interesting  men 
and  women  to  her  salon.  Mengs,  the  Bohemian  painter,  called 
the  Raphael  of  Germany,  Angelica  Kauffmann,  Ippolito  Pinde- 
monte,  an  Italian  poet — such  folk  brightened  her  days  and  nights, 
giving  her  an  interest  in  life  which  other  women  might  have 
found  unsatisfying,  but  which  to  her  represented  real  excitement. 
She  was  the  salonist  born.  Creative  power  she  did  not  at  all 
possess  ;  assimilative  power  was  hers  in  an  extraordinary  degree. 
She  devoured  culture,  so  to  speak  ;  she  read  enormously,  and 
with  a  "  deep  seriousness  "  which  might  easily  (and  did  in  later 
life)  incur  the  reproach  of  pedantry.  For  she  took  endless  notes  ; 
she  compared,  connoted,  "  conferred  "  ;  she  epitomised,  analysed, 
synthesised,  in  a  methodical  diligence  which  never  quite  caught 
the  spark  from  heaven,  and  which,  as  she  grew  older,  fell  into- 
something  that  we  can  only  think  of  as  an  utter  apathy  with  all 
the  externals  of  enthusiasm — a  state  of  mind  akin  to  that  state 
of  body  in  which  drug-taking  has  become  habitual. 

In  the  earlier  days,  however,  she  had  the  grace  of  her  charm- 
ing youth  wherewith  to  perfume  the  pedantry.  She  was  witty, 
high-spirited,  sweet ;  the  tinkling  laugh  trilled  for  many  other 
things  besides  Charles  Edward's  stories.  "Little  malicious 
touches"  she  had,  when  the  pretty  impertinent  nose  was  tilted 
and  the  fair  head  tossed ;  mischief  lurked  in  the  dark  eyes, 
dimples  round  the  fresh  lips  ;  "  a  childish  woman  of  the  world, 
a  bright  light  handful  of  thistle-bloom."  .  .  .  That  was  the 
external  aspect.  And  within  ?  The  bride  of  Charles  Edward — 
Charles  Edward  bloated,  drunken,  brutal,  for  his  best  behaviour 
did  not  last  long.  .  .  .  what  was  Louise  of  Albany's  inward 
life }  Had  it  been  very  terrible,  the  awakening — the  earlier 
repulsion,  born  of  ignorance }  the  later,  born  of  knowledge  ? 
The  first  time  she  had  found  him,  drunk,  beside  her — what  had 
that  meant  to  the  little  Queen  of  Hearts }  Whatever  it  had 
meant,  she  hid  it  bravely.  That  she  could  be  happy  no  one  was 
wild  enough  to  dream,  or  (in  those  franker  days)  hypocritical 


204  LOUISE   OF   STOLBERG 

enough  to  say.  But  to  what  degree  was  she  //chappy  ? 
That  was  what  the  worlds  of  Rome  and  Florence  were  not 
allowed  to  divine.  Absolutely  decorous,  absolutely  irreproach- 
able was  she.  In  that  age,  when  the  cicisbeo  was  a  recognised 
institution  of  Italian  society — so  recognised,  so  accepted,  that 
there  was  a  set  code  of  rules  and  regulations  for  him ! — Louise 
of  Albany  had  no  cicisbeo.  True,  it  would  have  been  difficult, 
with  such  a  husband,  to  set  him  up ;  but  the  extraordinary 
thing  was  that  she  did  not  seem  even  faintly  to  desire  to  do 
so.  "  She  is  satisfied  with  her  books ! "  So  the  Roman  and 
Florentine  ladies  whispered,  tittering  ;  and  what  sort  of  a  woman 
might  she  be,  whom  books  could  satisfy }  Well,  the  question 
has  not  to  this  day  been  answered — "  the  sort  of  woman  whom 
books  can  satisfy"  having,  we  may  safely  hazard,  not  as  yet 
emerged.  But  the  sort  of  woman  whom  books,  in  the  desert 
of  an  uncongenial  childless  marriage,  can  solace,  is  a  perennial 
type.  Which  of  us  does  not  know  her — the  dreamer,  solitary 
and  intense,  strenuous  yet  not  eager,  avid  yet  not  hungry, 
drinking  deep  draughts  from  the  Pierian  stream,  yet  never 
really  thirsty  .•*  Her  study  is  a  refuge,  not  a  Paradise ;  her 
books  are  anodynes,  not  wine  of  the  spirit.  Louise  of  Albany 
was  not  precisely  like  that,  because  (as  we  think)  her  nature 
was  only  passively  sensible  to  joy — and  therefore  only  passively 
sensible  to  sorrow.  Yet  somehow  culture,  though  her  whole 
life  was  given  up  to  it,  seems  never  to  have  "  rung  the  bell."  .  .  . 
The  bell,  in  fact,  we  vaguely  feel,  was  never  rung.  First,  the  wild- 
rose  child  was  disappointed ;  then  the  saddened,  disillusioned, 
but  still  romantic,  woman ;  finally,  everything  was  disappoint- 
ment for  everybody,  and  she  herself  the  greatest  disappointment 
of  all. 


They  left  Rome  for  Florence  in  1774,  once  more  in  search 
of  recognition,  which  once  more  they  did  not  find.  The  Grand- 
Duke  of  Tuscany  ignored  them.  The  nobles  would  have 
received  them,  but  "  received "  Charles  Edward  would  not  be ; 
and  so  the  old  miserable  haunted  isolation  was  the  lot  again 
of  our  Oueen   of    Hearts — an    isolation,   now,   with   grievously 


LOUISE  OF  STOLBERG  205 

aggravated  terrors.  For  her  husband  was  back  at  the  nasty 
bottle.  Those  nights  at  the  theatre  and  the  opera  which 
were  almost  her  only  outside  distraction,  were  now  made 
unendurable  by  the  presence — incessant  as  ever — of  a  drunkard 
who  brought  his  flask  of  Cyprus  or  his  brandy-bottle  to  the 
very  box  itself  that  he  might  swill  uninterruptedly ;  who,  later, 
ordered  to  be  installed  there  a  sofa  upon  which  to  "sleep  it 
off"  .  .  .  and  fortunate  was  the  Countess  of  Albany  when  that 
was  all  of  degradation  which  the  evening  held  for  her.  For 
there  were  nights  when  his  lackeys  had  to  carry  the  "King 
of  England "  to  his  carriage  ;  other  nights  when,  in  the  public 
corridors,  they  had  to  attend  him  solemnly  through  the  most 
disgusting  of  the  disgusts  of  drunkenness.  .  .  .  And  soon,  it 
was  not  only  drunkenness ;  soon  foul  oaths  would  scream  at 
her,  foul  acts,  unknown  and  hideous  words,  assail  her — as 
hard  to  bear,  perhaps,  as  the  blows  that  rained  upon  her  later 
still. 

Horror  had  come  full  tide,  as  it  was  bound  to  come;  and 
not  long,  in  such  a  case,  does  Destiny  delay.  Inevitably,  with 
the  hour  came  the  man. 

In  the  autumn  of  1777,  somebody  brought  to  the  Palazzo 
Guadagni  a  tall  pale  handsome  young  officer,  with  brilliant 
blue  eyes  and  masses  of  curling  red  hair — a  fashionable  young 
officer  with  a  reputation  for  gallantry  and  wonderful  horses, 
for  a  disdainful  and  sardonic  tongue,  an  utterly  tameless  spirit, 
a  mad  love  of  "  Liberty,"  a  marvellous  violence  and  a  marvellous 
self-control.  .  .  .  Vittorio  Alfieri,  in  short,  Sardinian  officer, 
would-be  dramatist,  horse-tamer,  libertine,  aristocrat,  man-of- 
fashion,  revolutionary — toute  la  lyre!  He  was  barely  twenty- 
eight,  yet  he  had  travelled  enormously,  loved  enormously,  hated 
enormously— and  been  utterly  unhappy  throughout  it  all.  As 
a  child,  he  had  been  morbid  and  unbalanced ;  as  a  young  man, 
fiery  and  excitable  and  avid  of  pleasures,  "which  he  ate  up  so 
fast  that  he  soon  became  thirsty  for  more  " — and  yet  more  and 
more,  until  the  world  could  not  hold  the  vastness  of  his  desire. 
"  I  felt  as  if  my  head  would  burst  with  the  excitement  every 
moment — everything  was  so  new  and  beautiful."  "  It  was  a 
glorious  day  ...  I  went  almost  crazy  with  excitement."     So 


206  LOUISE  OF  STOLBERG 

he  would  write  in  his  Autobiography,  and  so  it  was  with  him 
all  his  life  through.  Alfieri's  head  was  always  ready  to  burst ; 
he  was  always  crazy  with  excitement.  Scarcely  capable  of 
happiness  was  he,  but  into  his  misery,  his  dissatisfaction  with 
life,  he  struck  such  fire  that  they  became  emotions — burning, 
blazing,  with  all  the  unreason  of  emotions,  with  all  their  force, 
their  throb  and  thrill,  their  mobility,  instability.  ...  His  youth 
had  been  wasted,  yet  nothing  in  the  world  had  been  denied 
him.  His  parents  were  rich,  noble,  indulgent ;  his  relatives 
encouraging  (rarest  surely  of  all  Fortune's  gifts !) ;  his  teachers 
not  more  apathetic  than  the  general  in  those  days.  Money 
had  never  been  wanting:  to  his  wildest  extravagances  there 
was  no  one  to  demur.  Horses  and  clothes  had  been  his  foibles 
— horses  especially.  They  were  the  only  creatures  that  had 
stirred  his  heart  at  all,  though  his  love-affairs  had  been  incessant. 
But  these  had  been  unbeautified  by  any  romance,  or  even  any 
poor  illusion  of  romance :  Alfieri  had  actually  hated  the  women 
who  enslaved  him,  and  they  had  been  evil  without  exception. 
"  I  felt  a  deep  and  malignant  melancholy  "  :  that  was  his  concep- 
tion, until  1777,  of  the  experience  called  "being  in  love"!  He 
had  known  most  things,  in  short,  before  he  met  Louise  of 
Albany,  except  the  thing  which  she  of  all  women  could  best 
teach  him :  the  enjoyment  of  a  state  of  lucid  tranquillity,  and 
at  the  same  time  energy,  of  mind  and  body.  "I  found  that 
I  had  at  last  met  the  woman  for  whom  I  had  been  searching, 
who  instead  of  being,  like  all  the  others  I  had  known,  an  obstacle 
to  literary  fame,  an  impediment  to  useful  occupations,  and  a 
detriment  to  all  elevated  thoughts,  was  an  incentive  and  a 
noble  example  to  every  great  work  ;  and  I,  recognising  and 
appreciating  such  a  rare  treasure,  gave  myself  up  entirely  to  her." 
That  is  his  version  of  their  long  love-affair,  and  it  is  as  true 
as  he  was  capable  of  making  it.  All  that  Alfieri  had  to  give,  he 
gave.  And  she .?  She  was  the  "  anchor  of  my  life,"  la  dolce  metd 
di  me  stesso — and,  as  well,  his  soiiffre-douleur^  his  nurse,  his  house- 
keeper, trumpeter,  advertising-agent.  .  .  .  Perseus  never  spared 
his  Andromeda  ;  if  she  had  been  delivered  from  the  dragon,  she 
was  nevertheless  still  chained  to  the  rock — the  rock  of  Alfieri's 
unconscious  and  incomparable  selfishness. 


LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG  207 

It  was  three  years  after  their  meeting  that  the  actual  crisis 
came.  Till  then,  their  relations  had  been  purely  intellectual.  It 
would  have  been  difficult,  indeed,  to  achieve  any  closer  friendship, 
for  Charles  Edward  haunted  her  as  ever.  "He  was  never  further 
off  than  the  next  room."  But  one  feels  that  even  without  the 
safeguard  of  his  jealousy,  the  strange  lovers  might  very  probably 
have  done  no  otherwise  than  as  they  did.  For  to  neither  had 
passion  shown  anything  of  its  glamour.  To  her,  it  had  been 
merely  loathsome  ;  to  him,  merely  degrading.  And  he — for  ever 
posing  to  himself,  though  all  unconsciously — hugged  the  thought 
that  here  was  the  new  Dante  and  Beatrice,  Petrarch  and  Laura 
...  a  Beatrice,  a  Laura,  not  indeed  "  enskied  and  sainted,"  but 
martyrised,  insulted,  terrified,  with  every  day  that  dawned  and 
night  that  fell.  And  nothing  could  be  done  ;  they  could  not 
run  away  together — that  would  mean  instant  separation.  The 
Catholic  Church  could  grant  no  divorce — the  husband  would 
certainly  make  no  arrangement .  .  .  and  so  they  acquiesced  ;  they 
took  from  life  what  life  could  give  them — until  the  St.  Andrew's 
Day  of  1780. 

On  that  day,  after  a  drunken  orgy,  the  Pretender  "  roused  his 
wife  in  the  middle  of  the  night  with  a  torrent  of  insulting 
language  which  provoked  her  to  vehement  recrimination  ;  he 
beat  her,  committed  foul  acts  on  her,  and  finished  by  attempting 
to  strangle  her  in  her  bed."  The  servants  heard  her  screams, 
came  hurrying,  dragged  him  away — otherwise  St.  Andrew's 
night  would  have  been  Louise  of  Albany's  last  night  on  earth. 
.  .  .  Now  there  was  no  choice.     She  must  leave  her  husband. 

"  Had  she  made  any  effort  to  redeem  him .?  We  do  not 
know,"  remarks  Taillandier.  We  do  not  know,  but  we  can  guess. 
Did  she  ever  make  an  effort  of  any  kind  ?  Never.  Passivity, 
hidden  beneath  the  superficial  social  vivacity  of  her  allure,  was 
the  essential  thing  in  her  character.  .  .  She  escaped  now,  but 
the  escape  was  engineered  for  her  by  others— by  Alfieri  and  a 
woman-friend  and  that  woman-friend's  cavaliere  servente. 
Madame  Orlandini  drove  her  to  a  convent  "  to  see  some  needle- 
work," Charles  Edward  of  course  in  attendance.  At  the  convent 
gates,  a  Mr.  Geoghegan  was  waiting.  He  helped  out  the  ladies, 
who  ran  quickly  up  the  steps,  while  Geoghegan  offered  his  arm 


208  LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

to  the  Pretender.  He,  disabled  by  dropsy,  followed  much  more 
slowly.  The  ladies  were  safely  in  .  .  .  and  just  as  the  two  men 
reached  the  heavy  portal,  it  was  flung  to  in  their  faces.  "A 
mistake,"  explained  Geoghegan.  "  They  will  soon  find  that  it  is  ; 
they  will  have  to  open  !  "  shouted  Charles  Edward,  battering  on 
the  door.  But  the  door  remained  as  it  was  for  several  minutes  ; 
then  it  slowly  opened,  and  the  Lady  Abbess  herself  appeared 
behind  a  grating.  The  Count  of  Albany  could  not  enter,  she 
announced ;  his  wife  had  sought  an  asylum  in  the  Abbey,  under 
the  protection  of  the  Grand-Duke  of  Tuscany.  .  .  .  The  days 
and  nights  of  terror  were  done  with,  for  ever.  "  Enough,"  wrote 
Alfieri,  "for  me  to  say  that  I  saved  the  Countess  from  the 
tyranny  of  a  brutal  and  drunken  master,  without  sullying  her 
honour — dying  as  she  was,  inch  by  inch." 

Such  was  the  upshot  of  d'Aiguillon's  grand  scheme  for  the 
perpetuation  of  the  House  of  Stuart ! 


So  it  began — the  long  love-affair  which  never  ended  in 
marriage.  Rome  first,  in  the  Cardinal  York's — Brother  Henry's 
— Palace  of  the  Cancelleria.  But  in  1783,  Alfieri  was  banished 
by  the  Pope — or  rather,  anticipating  banishment,  haughtily  left 
of  his  own  accord.  Then  came  a  meeting  at  Colmar  in  1784,  and 
for  the  first  time  in  their  "  long  Platonic  passion,"  Louise  and  her 
poet  under  the  same  roof — for  Charles  Edward,  pressed  by 
Gustavus  HI.  of  Sweden,  had  at  last  consented  to  a  separation  .  .  . 
In  1783,  Louise  had  written  to  Francesco  Gori,  Alfieri's  bosom- 
friend  :  "  What  a  cruel  thing  to  expect  one's  happiness  from  the 
death  of  another.  O  God  !  how  it  sullies  the  soul.  Yet  I  cannot 
refrain  from  wishing  it."  The  news  of  that  other's  death  reached 
her  in  Paris  in  1788.  She  received  it  with  genuine  emotion ; 
"  she  was  not  a  little  touched,"  wrote  Alfieri  in  his  Autobiography. 
Well !  human  nature — especially  feminine  human  nature — has 
these  perennial  surprises  for  itself  Saint-Rene  Taillandier  hints 
at  remorse.  Remorse — because  she  had  not  let  herself  be 
strangled  in  her  bed  by  a  drunken  beast !  Let  us  leave  remorse 
out  of  the  picture.  But  with  what  emotion,  indeed,  can  we 
compose  it  }      Charles   Edward's   natural    daughter,   Charlotte 


LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG  209 

Walkinshaw  (by  him  created  Duchess  of  Albany),  had  tended  the 
last  few  years,  and  once  again,  he  had  known  decency  and  sanity 
for  a  period — had  even  died  with  some  degree  of  dignity  and 
pathos.  ...  It  is  this  fact  which  Taillandier  uses  to  justify  his 
theory  of  remorse.  But  the  difference  between  a  daughter's 
position  and  a  wife's  with  regard  to  such  a  man  needs  only  to  be 
pondered  on  for  a  moment — and  there  is  an  end  once  more. 
Again,  Charlotte  Walkinshaw,  solitary,  poor,  and  illegitimate,  had 
everything  to  gain  by  such  devotion  ;  Louise  of  Stolberg  had  not 
only  nothing  to  gain,  but  most  things  which  humanity  holds  dear 
to  lose.  ...  Her  tears,  then,  we  may  safely  assign  to  the  nerves, 
to  a  state  of  sudden  emotional  perplexity.  She  did  not  know  how 
she  felt — and  so,  like  many  another  woman,  she  began  to  cry ! 

Well,  now  she  is  free,  now  she  is  all  Alfieri's.  What  will  she 
do  ?  Some  years  earlier,  writing  to  her  poet's  mother  (who  had  no 
suspicion  of  their  relation  to  one  another),  she  had  said,  "I  hope 
that  if  circumstances  change,  you  will  not  see  die  out  a  family  to 
which  you  are  so  attached,  and  that  you  will  receive  the  greatest 
consolation  from  M.  le  Comte  Alfieri."  Plainly  there,  she  hints 
at  the  secret — plainly  too  reveals  her  inmost  hope.  And  yet — 
now  .  .  .  what  does  she  do }  "  Nothing  will  be  altered  in  our 
mode  of  life,"  wrote  Alfieri  to  a  friend  at  the  time  of  the 
Pretender's  death,  and  added  "for  the  present."  .  .  .  Neither  in 
the  present  nor  in  the  future  was  anything  altered.  They  never 
got  married.  The  truth  was  that  neither  of  them  desired  to  get 
married.  Whatever  Louise  of  Albany  may  have  dreamed  in  the 
earlier  days  of  their  love,  she  now  dreamed  no  longer.  ...  Or 
may  it  be,  indeed,  that  she  was  dreaming  still — and  more 
romantically }  Hardly,  as  we  think,  though  that  might  well 
have  been  the  explanation.  Much  that  happened  later  shows 
too  plainly  that  romance  was  neutral  here.  Her  chief  reason  we 
take  to  have  been  an  echo  of  the  high  graceful  snobbery  of  her 
youth.  She  had  never— even  though  Charles  Edward  at  the 
time  of  the  separation  had  expressly  stipulated  it — abandoned 
her  title  of  Countess  of  Albany ;  and  she  kept  it  to  the  end. 
"  Madame  la  Comtesse  Alfieri "  :  t^at  did  not  carry  with  it  the 
blazon  :  Queen  of  England!  Her  plate  was  engraved  with  the 
Royal  Arms  of  England  ;  a  Royal  Throne  stood  in  her  ante-room  ; 
P 


210  LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

her  servants  addressed  her  by  the  title  of  a  Queen ;  her 
flattering  friends  knew  that  ma  chhe  souveraine  was  a  favourite 
flattery,  .  .  .  Yet  this  was  the  woman  who  in  1791  was  presented 
at  the  English  Court,  who  sat  in  the  King's  box  at  the  Opera, 
who  accepted  a  seat  at  the  foot  of  the  throne  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  on  the  Tenth  of  June — Prince  Charlie's  birthday! 
Puzzling  enough,  is  it  not?  all  of  it— and  puzzling  it  must 
remain.  Disappointing  enough,  too,  if  we  have  not  yet  realised 
the  essential  of  her  character.  Passivity :  that  is  it.  She  was  of 
the  lymphatic  ones.  It  is  of  no  avail  to  champion  her,  to  say 
that  marriage,  goodness  knows  !  had  shown  little  of  its  sanctity  to 
the  drunken  Pretender's  wife.  That  might  well  have  been  the 
reason,  but  that  was  not  the  reason.  She  did  not  care — she  had 
settled  down  into  a  groove  ;  it  was  a  great  deal  of  trouble,  and  it 
was  not  quite  worth  while,  to  get  out  of  it.  Nor  was  Alfieri 
eager  either — he  preferred  the  Petrarch  and  Laura  legend  to  the 
commonplace  of  "  Monsieur  et  Madame  la  Comtesse."  If  he  had 
been  eager,  she  would  have  acquiesced,  they  would  have  been 
married.  Always  she  acquiesced — always.  From  the  first  to  the 
last,  the  key-note  is  passivity. 


"  Alfieri  was  born  to  do^  and  he  could  only  writer — Such  was 
the  judgment  of  Mme.  de  Stael.  *'  Nothing  ",  she  pursued,  "  so 
deforms  a  work  of  imagination  as  to  have  a  purpose  in  writing 
it.  .  .  .  Alfieri  wants  to  march  through  literature  to  a  political 
goal."  That  sums  him  up,  incomparably — so  far  as  his  work 
is  concerned.  And  as  a  human  being,  too,  it  by  implication 
sums  him  up.  He  could  never  let  the  wind  blow  through  his  life. 
Always  he  had  some  violent  pose  or  some  violent  unreasoned 
purpose — never  for  a  moment  could  he  give  himself  up  to  the  joy 
of  existence.  Some  fatal  drop  there  was  which  poisoned  all 
the  fineness  of  the  man.  "  There  is  declamation  in  the  impulse 
of  his  heart,"  says  Taillandier ;  "  his  love  was  all  effort — not 
pretence,  but  a  continual  effort  to  deceive  himself."  ...  At 
Pisa,  Siena,  Florence,  la  donna  adorata  had  many  an  ignoble 
rival.     She  knew  it — what  did  she  do  }     She  acquiesced. 

And   when  Alfieri  died  in   1803,  once  again  the  tears,  the 


LOUISE  OF  STOLBERG  211 

emotion,  were  ready.  They  had  been  lovers  for  twenty-six 
years.  "  Happiness  has  disappeared  out  of  the  world  for  me," 
she  wrote.  .  .  .  Yet  already  Fabre  was  her  confessed  admirer- 
some  say,  lover.  That  we  do  not  think.  She  was  fifty-one  when 
Al fieri  died  ;  the  heyday  in  the  blood  was  tame.  But  very  soon, 
Fabre  was  all  to  her  that  Al  fieri  had  been — and  more,  for  her 
salon,  the  real  passion  of  her  life  (if  her  life  had  any  passion), 
was  pleasanter  to  her  now.  "Alfieri,  far  more  agreeably  than 
when  alive — reigned  over  the  Countess  of  Albany's  salon  ! "  says 
Taillandier,  gaily.  It  became  the  gathering-place  of  Europe, 
"  Z^  grande  lanterne-magiqtie  passe  totit  par  votre  salon"  wrote 
Sismondi — Sismondi  with  whom  she  quarrelled  in  the  end,  as 
she  quarrelled  with  Foscolo,  because  their  politics  differed 
actively  from  her  own.  .  .  .  And  so  we  see  her,  as  at  first  was 
hinted,  a  stubborn,  reactionary  Tyrant  of  the  Drawing-room — she 
who  had  been  the  yielding  Egeria  of  Vittorio  Alfieri !  Passive  no 
longer }  Yes — as  passive  ;  for  it  was  the  enthusiasm,  the  ardour, 
which  she  could  not  feel  that  angered  her  with  Foscolo  and  with 
Sismondi.  She  liked  to  take  her  notes,  write  her  gossipy, 
cynical  letters,  receive  her  guests  under  the  aegis  of  Alfieri's  fame 
— although  her  gatherings  were  so  different  from  what  he  had 
made  them.  "  Her  conversation  was  exquisite."  .  .  .  And  so, 
an  agreeable,  stout,  dowdy  old  lady  we  leave  her:  "Like  a 
Rubens  woman  grown  old,"  said  Chateaubriand,  though 
Lamartine,  that  exquisite  sentimentalist,  could  still  retrieve  the 
light  in  the  eyes,  the  radiance  in  the  face.  ..."  She  is  like  a 
cook  with  pretty  hands,"  wrote  Stendhal  of  the  Fabre  portrait  in 
the  Uffizzi.  .  .  .  There  is  no  need  to  sigh.  For  the  wild-rose 
girl  a  tear  may  edge  its  way  to  our  eyelids,  but  other  wild-rose 
girls  can  bring  the  tears  farther,  can  set  up  a  real  ache  in  the 
heart.  .  .  .  This  one  somehow  leaves  the  heart  less  tender  than 
she  found  it :  one  knows  not  too  well  why.  To  be  passive  is  to 
escape  too  easily — that  is  why,  perhaps.  And  moreover — the 
bell  must  ring,  before  pity  and  sympathy  come  rushing ! 


She  died  in    1824.     To  Fabre  she  left  all   that  was  left  of 
Alfieri — works,  books,  letters,   relics ;    and   Fabre   enriched   his 


212  LOUISE   OF  STOLBERG 

native  town  of  Montpellier  with  these — and  with  all  that  she  had 
of  Stuart  relics  besides.  In  the  Musee  Fabre  the  traveller  may 
there  inspect  them.  That  monument  strikes  a  truer  note  than  the 
tomb  in  Santa  Croce — the  tomb  for  which  Alfieri  had  written  an 
epitaph :  "  To  Vittorio  Alfieri  she  was  beyond  all  things  beloved." 
Fabre  did  not  use  that  epitaph  ;  there  is  no  word  from  Alfieri  on 
her  separate  tomb  in  Santa  Croce.  Fabre  built  his  Museum  at 
Montpellier  instead — serious  intelligent  Fabre,  connoisseur  of  the 
first  order  in  art ;  Fabre,  in  later  life,  cold,  discreet,  very  respect- 
ful towards  her  memory,  but  never  willing  to  speak  of  her ;  Fabre, 
who  wrote  in  his  copy  of  the  Biographic  Universelle  (published  in 
1834)  the  following  note  against  a  statement  of  their  secret 
marriage  :  "  Cest  faicx "  !  It  too  may  be  inspected  at  Mont- 
pellier. .  .  .  Was  Fabre  then,  like  so  many  another  master  of 
supreme  good-taste,  a  master  of  supreme  irony  as  well  ? 


THE     STAR 


ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

1692-1730 

"  r^  ENSIBILITY  " :  the  word  is  obsolete,  but  it  lives  and 
^W  sighs  again  as  we  read  her  story.  The  things  we  should 
W^  like  posterity  to  say  of  us — what  a  revealing  admission 
that  would  be  !  Thinking  of  Adrienne  Lecouvreur,  we  feel  that 
we  know  what  she  would  have  liked.  Une  destin^e  d'hnotion^  in 
Sainte-Beuve's  phrase.  "She  suffered  much — she  remembered 
long."  ...  "It  was  her  destiny  to  suffer  through  all  that  she 
loved  "...  that  kind  of  thing !  To  suffer  was  the  essential  part 
of  sensibility,  to  find  a  certain  gentle  joy  in  suffering  was  an 
extra  grace — the  virtuosity,  as  it  were,  of  the  art.  "  All  day  I 
have  been  plunged  in  a  melancholy  kind  of  languor,  which  yet 
was  not  insupportable.  You  don't  understand  that,  because  you're 
not  weak  nor  a  woman  nor  melancholy  by  nature."  That  passage 
strikes  almost  every  note  in  the  gamut  of  sensibility.  .  .  . 
Adrienne  Lecouvreur  was  the  greatest  tragic  actress  of  her  time, 
and  among  the  greatest  of  any  time — yet  so  far  we  have  spoken 
only  of  the  resigned,  unhappy  woman !  There,  again,  is  the  kind 
of  thing  she  would  have  liked.  A  supreme  and  impassioned 
artist,  she  would  have  chosen  to  be  embalmed  for  her  sorrows 
rather  than  for  her  fame. 

Such  a  temperament,  on  the  stage,  is  never  acting.  Im- 
mutably, it  represents  itself  Certain  emotions  stir  it,  certain 
passions  inflame  it — those  alone  it  can  render ;  but  render  those 
it  must.  Very  literally,  these  natures  need  continually  to  "  show 
off " — in  the  most  delicate  and  sensitive  way,  sincere  absolutely, 
yet  watching  themselves,  as  it  were,  on  the  stage  of  human  life, 
and  glad  to  afford  to  others,  from  behind  the  footlights,  the  same 
exquisite  opportunity. 

215 


216  ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

Thus  we  find  Adrienne,  born  in  1692,  reciting  poetry  with 
wonderful  feeling  before  she  was  ten.  People  used  to  ask  her 
into  their  houses  to  hear  her :  the  little  voice  would  sob  and  swell 
and  die  away  divinely.  She  learned  the  verses — impassioned 
small  laundress  that  she  was ! — between  the  wash-tub  and  the 
ironing-board.  Her  father  was  a  poor  journeyman-hatter  of 
Damery  ;  soon  after  her  birth,  he  went  to  live  at  Fismes,  between 
Reims  and  Soissons — it  was  probably  at  Fismes  that  the  poetry 
was  learned  and  spoken.  Well  that  she  had  such  solace,  for  her 
childhood  was  poignantly  unhappy.  "A  furious  and  jealous 
goddess  "  (so  she  wrote  in  later  years)  "  seated  herself  beside  my 
cradle,  and  regulated  my  destiny  with  a  ruthless  violence  of 
persecution" — and  indeed  her  father,  a  man  of  ungovernable 
temper,  died  raving  mad.  Of  her  mother  we  hear  nothing. 
Destiny,  not  so  utterly  ruthless  as  the  description  would  indicate, 
was  at  least  interested,  for  she  brought  Couvreur  *  to  Paris,  and 
dropped  him  down  close  to  the  Comedie-Frangaise,  just  newly 
installed  at  Rue  des  Foss^s-Saint-Germain-des-Pres.  Then 
Destiny  abstracted  her  attention  for  a  moment — and  Couvreur 
moved  to  the  Temple  Quarter.  But  it  made  no  difference.  The 
move  took  place  in  1705.  "  In  that  year,  a  lot  of  young  people 
met  at  a  grocer's  in  the  Rue  Ferou,  some  steps  from  Adrienne's 
school,  to  act  a  play  and  an  after-piece."  The  play  was  Pierre 
Corneille's  Polyeucte  ;  the  after-piece  wdiS  LeDmil,  by  Hauteroche 
and  Thomas  Corneille.  Adrienne  played  Pauline  in  the  tragedy. 
She  was  just  thirteen !  No  one  had  trained  her,  she  had  no 
theatre-blood  in  her  veins :  she  must  have  been,  to  quote  the 
Abb6  d'Allainval, "  one  of  those  extraordinary  persons  who  create 
themselves  " — for  she  recited  Corneille's  tirades  "  in  a  way  that 
would  have  made  Mile.  Du  Clos  turn  pale  with  envy." 

The  performances  were  successful,  they  even  had  a  little  run  ; 
a  benevolent  rich  lady,  Madame  Du  Gue,  who  lived  at  Number 
Eight,  Rue  Garanci^re,  heard  of  them  and  offered  the  young 
actors  the  big  courtyard  of  her  house  to  perform  in.  People  went 
in  crowds.  ''La  Cour^  la  Ville^  la  ComMie  itaient  Id  "  ;  Adrienne 
wore  the  wrong  sort  of  dress — it  was  far  from  classical,  having 
been  borrowed  from  Madame  Du  Gu^'s  maid  ;  but  again  it  m^de 
*  Adrienne  added  the  "  Le  "  to  make  a  better  stage-name. 


ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  217 

no  difference.  "  Everyone  said  she  had  only  one  step  to  take 
before  becoming  the  greatest  actress  who  had  ever  been  with  the 
Comedie-Fran^aise."  Nor  was  she  too  dazzlingly  the  star : 
there  was  a  boy  called  Minou,  who  played  the  part  of  Severus 
with  fire,  pathos,  and  intelligence.  Indeed,  so  impassioned  was 
Minou  that  when  he  had  to  say  "...  Soutiens-moi :  ce  coup  de 
foiidre  est  grand" — he  actually  did  fall  down  in  a  faint  and  had 
to  be  bled  !  "  These  risks  are  no  longer  run  on  the  stage  of  the 
Theatre- Frangais,"  remarks  d'Allainval ;  but  Minou  recovered 
and  finished  his  part.  There  indeed  was  the  "glory  and  the 
dream  " — that  divine  young  enthusiasm  ;  and  there,  too,  in  an 
ironic  image  of  life,  was  Officialdom  knocking  at  the  door!  The 
actors  of  the  Theatre-Frangais  had  sent  the  Police. 

These  actors  were  very  jealous  of  their  rights ;  they  fought 
hard  against  all  the  illicit  theatres  of  Paris — even  our  little 
people  were  not  too  insignificant  to  be  crushed.  There  was 
actually  some  talk  of  imprisoning  them.  But  Madame  du  Gue 
"  stopped  this  " — by  appealing,  one  trusts,  to  the  Law's  sense  of 
humour!  Nevertheless  it  was  demanded  that  the  performance 
should  cease,  so  Le  Deuil  was  never  played.  Perhaps  it  was  a 
good  omen — though  Adrienne  would  never  have  admitted  that. 
Sensibility  saw  only  the  bad  omens.  .  .  .  The  children  took 
refuge  in  the  Temple-Precincts,  a  sort  of  sanctuary  where  no  one 
could  be  arrested  for  anything  whatever  without  a  lettre-de-cachet 
from  the  King.  This  lasted  a  while :  two  or  three  times  they 
acted  there — then,  as  life  will  have  it,  the  little  troop  dispersed. 
But  Adrienne's  fate  had  been  fixed  by  these  theatricals.  Her 
aunt  the  laundress  had  among  her  clients  an  actor  called 
Legrand,  belonging  to  the  Official  Theatre.  "  He  desired  to  be 
Adrienne's  second  teacher,  as  Nature  had  been  her  first."  But 
Legrand  was  an  amiable  procrastinator — of  all  things  the  most 
fatal  to  ambition.  He  put  off  the  lessons  so  long  and  seemed  so 
little  in  earnest  that  Adrienne,  whom  he  had  taken  under  his 
roof,  left  it,  "  and  went  off  to  play  in  the  provinces."  There  for 
ten  years — 1706  to  17 17 — she  led  the  life  of  a  provincial  actress. 
At  Luneville  and  Strasbourg,  at  Metz,  Nancy,  and  Verdun  she 
acted — she  lived.  By  17 10,  she  was  leading-lady  at  Luneville  ; 
by  171 1,  "  actress  at  the  Court  of  Lorraine  "  and  leading-lady  at 


218  ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR 

Strasbourg,  with  a  salary  of  2000  livres — for  that  time,  a 
remarkable  one.  It  was  her  chosen  life ;  away  from  the  foot- 
lights she  could  not  have  existed ;  her  success,  so  far,  exceeded 
her  dreams — yet  "  she  never  forgot  the  disgust  it  caused  her." 
It  is  easy  to  understand  that.  She  was  fragile,  exquisite,  and 
impassioned,  born  for  greatness  unachieved  as  yet — and  only  to 
those  who  have  achieved  greatness,  or  who  are  made  of  coarser 
stuff  than  she,  can  the  life  of  the  travelling-actor  smile.  We 
hear  of  no  jealousies,  no  unkindness,  from  her  comrades.  The 
atmosphere  it  was  which  disgusted  her — the  disorder,  the  slack- 
ness, the  looseness  every  way  of  the  living  :  "  obligatory  amuse- 
ments, men's  importunities,  love-affairs."  .  .  . 

Love-affairs — the  bane  of  her  existence  !  Love — the  pro- 
foundest  instinct  of  her  being !  Que  f aire  au  monde  sans  aimer  f 
she  wrote  to  her  life-long  friend  and  would-be,  but  never- 
accepted,  lover,  d'Argental.  "It  might  have  been  her  motto," 
says  Paleologue.  Yet  unlucky  is  a  feeble  term  for  what  she  was 
in  love.     Her  lovers  were  all  unworthy,  except  perhaps,  as  we 

illogically  dream,  the  first,  that  Baron  de  D "  of  the  Regiment 

of  Picardy,"  who  died  so  soon,  who  was  mourned  so  beautifully — 
and  replaced  so  quickly !  D'Argental,  the  mere  friend,  the 
kindly,  industrious,  responsible,  unrewarded,  is  the  only  fine- 
natured  adorer  she  ever  had.  Her  friends  indeed  were  all  that 
her  lovers  ought  to  have  been.  Once  "  that  passion  "  came  into 
the  story,  Adrienne  seemed  unerringly  to  call  forth  only  the  evil 
in  her  man.  He  would  show  himself  false  or  cowardly  or  brutal 
or  mercenary — manly  in  the  true  sense,  if  she  loved  him,  he 
never  proved. 

During  this  Alsatian  period,  as  we  may  call  it,  she  had  four 

love-affairs.     First  the  Baron  de  D ;  then  Philippe  Le  Roy, 

officier  de  Monseigneur  le  dice  de  Lo^'raine^  who  was  probably  the 
father  of  her  first  child,  though  Des  Boulmiers  attributes  it  to 

D and  others  to  Clavel,  an  actor  to  whom  she  was  "  sadly 

faithful"   for    two   years.     When   the   Baron    de    D died, 

Adrienne  was  in  despair ;  but  before  long  we  find  her  discussing 
the  question  of  marriage  with  Clavel,  in  a  letter  which  has  been 
much  eulogised  by  her  biographers.  He  had  promised,  or  led 
her  to  think  that  he  had  promised,  marriage,  and   she  wrote: 


ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  219 

"  Think  well ;  you  still  are  master.  Remember  that  I 
possess  nothing  and  owe  much,  and  that  you  can  do  better 
elsewhere.  .  .  .  Do  not  spare  me.  .  .  .  Don't  promise  me  any- 
thing that  you  don't  mean  to  perform,  even  if  you  promise  to 
hate  me.  I  should  prefer  that  to  being  deceived.  ...  I  care 
more  for  your  interests  than  my  own.  I  know  you  well  enough 
to  be  aware  that  you  enjoy  being  generous,  and  that  you  might 
even  specially  enjoy  beating  me  at  my  own  game — but,  once 
more,  do  think  it  well  over.  .  .  .  Follow  your  inclination  without 
thinking  too  much  of  the  consequences.  I  shall  play  my  part, 
whatever  it  may  be,  as  well  as  I  possibly  can,  whether  I  keep  you 
or  lose  you.  ...  If  I  lose  you,  at  least  I  shall  hope  that  it  may 
not  be  entirely,  and  that  I  may  always  possess  a  measure  of  your 
esteem.  If  you  are  happy,  I  shall  have  the  joy  of  knowing  it 
and  of  not  having  prevented  it ;  and  if  you  are  not,  at  least  it 
will  not  be  I  who  have  made  you  unhappy — and  so  I  shall  try, 
in  one  way  or  another,  to  console  myself." 

We  confess  that  we  do  not  admire  this  letter  in  the  least.  It 
is  utterly  lacking  in  charm  ;  it  is  too-hideously  reasonable — and 
worse,  it  strikes  us,  not  precisely  as  insincere,  but  as  studied, 
overcharged  :  an  orgie  of  self-abjection,  an  offering  to  her  own 
moral  vanity,  or  a  burnt-sacrifice  to  the  Moloch  of  male  selfish- 
ness, whichever  one  prefers.  And  Clavel,  poor  man !  had  his 
own  vanity  no  doubt,  his  own  sense  of  generosity,  and  very 
assuredly  his  own  share  of  the  secular  selfishness.  Clavel 
"refused  the  inestimable  offer" — withdrawing  both  his  virtues 
and  his  vices  from  the  too-ardent  victim.  In  short,  if  one  was 
base,  the  other  was  abject.  The  combination  is  repellent — and 
the  more  so,  because  we  very  quickly  find  the  lady  occupied  with 
a  new  lover.  This  was  M.  de  Klinglin,  Chief  Magistrate  of 
Strasbourg.  He  too  made  promises  of  marriage;  but  in  171 6, 
though  she  had  just  presented  him  with  a  daughter,  Klinglin  too 
proved  perfidious  :  "  he  yielded  to  the  wishes  of  his  family  and 
made  a  more  advantageous  union." 

Adrienne  composed  many  a  mournful  aphorism  in  these  early 
years.  "  I  know  too  well  by  experience  that  one  doesn't  die  of 
grief."  "  There  are  sweet  errors  which  I  dare  not  again  commit : 
too-sad   experiences    have   enlightened    my   reason."      "  I   am 


220  ADRIENNE    LECOUVREUR 

utterly  weary  of  love,  and  prodigiously  tempted  to  have  done 
with  it  for  the  rest  of  my  life ;  for,  after  all,  I  don't  want  either 
to  die,  or  to  go  mad  !  "  .  .  .  I  know  that  one  doesn't  die  of  grief ; 
but  the  truth  was  that  she  could  not  have  lived  without  it. 
Tears  were  her  daily  bread.  One  almost  suspects  that  she 
would  have  found  it  difficult  to  accept  nobility  from  a  lover — and 
it  was  natural,  perhaps,  that  a  leading-lady  should  like  to  give 
herself  the  beau  rdle ! 

Blameless  be  Clavel  and  Klinglin !  It  was  Destiny,  of 
course — Destiny  who  was  resolved  that  Adrienne  Lecouvreur 
should  be  the  name  of  a  great  actress.  Her  grief  and  mortifica- 
tion at  Klinglin's  desertion  impelled  her  to  leave  Strasbourg,  and 
from  Strasbourg,  she  went  to  Paris.  There,  on  March  27,  17 17, 
at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  she  made  her  dibilt  at  the  Comedie- 
Frangaise,  choosing  her  own  piece.  M.  Georges  Monval,  the 
editor  of  her  Collected  Letters,  and  an  authority  on  her  history, 
says  that  she  chose  Crebillon's  Electra ;  but  the  Biographical 
Dictionaries  all  agree  in  saying  that  her  d^b^t  in  Paris  was  in 
the  "part  of  Monime."  Whatever  it  was  in,  her  triumph  was 
complete.  It  was  said  that  she  began  where  most  great  actresses 
ended.  The  special  note  of  her  art  was  subtlety — "  those 
exquisite  effects  which  come  in  a  tender  sigh,  a  speaking  glance, 
a  silence  or  a  cry  divinely  imagined "  ;  the  special  distinction  of 
her  method,  her  new  way  of  reciting — a  natural  diction  which  had 
not  hitherto  been  a  grace  of  the  French  stage.  "She  almost 
invented  the  art  of  speaking  directly  to  the  heart "  ;  but  she 
did  not  overdo  simplicity.  Rant,  exaggeration,  bombast — with 
these  she  was  unacquainted ;  nevertheless,  a  certain  majesty  of 
demeanour  was  inalienably  hers.  "  She  seemed  a  queen  among 
the  mimes "  ;  there  were  even  moments,  in  comedy,  when  she 
could  not  sufficiently  put  off  these  grand  airs.  In  Marivaux* 
piece.  La  Surprise  de  rAmotir^  she  failed  badly,  and  that  was 
why  she  failed,  for  she  acted  en  reine  a  quaint  little  modern, 
naughty  Marquise,  of  the  irresponsible  order  of  beings.  The  only 
other  misfit  we  hear  of  was  recurrent :  her  failure  ever  to  play 
C^limene  in  Le  Misanthrope — C^lim^ne,  that  ^^  pier  re  de  touctie 
des grandes  coquettes" 


ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

FROM    DREVET's    ENGRAVING   OF   THE    LOST    PICTURE    BY   COYPEL 


ADRIENNE    LECOUVREUR  221 

But  what  were  these  among  so  many  ?  For  thirteen  years 
she  reigned  supreme,  the  greatest  tragic  actress  of  her  time,  and 
never  surpassed  at  any  time  in  a  certain  type  of  part — that 
wherein  sentiment  prevails.  "  In  such  parts,"  writes  an  anony- 
mous theatre-goer  of  1723,  "she  is  beyond  anything  I  ever  heard 
before.  She  fills  the  heart  with  sensibility,  and  one  can  see  that 
she  is  filled  with  it  herself"  "  I  think  our  best  actors,"  wrote  Lady 
Montague,  after  seeing  her  in  17 18,  a  year  after  her  d^b'Ht,  "  can 
only  be  said  to  speak,  but  these  to  feel."  Adrienne's  feeling  was 
her  great  asset — and  her  great  snare.  She  was  so  affected  by  her 
parts  that  it  made  her  acting  variable  ;  "  it  was  to  be  wished  that 
she  were  less  subject  to  her  own  caprice."  Voltaire  expressed  in 
some  stiffly  graceful  verses,  this  peculiarly  personal  effect : 

" '  Moi '  dit  1'  Amour,  '  je  ferai  davantage, 
Je  veux  qu'elle  aime.'    A  peine  eut-il  parl^ 
Que  dans  I'instant  vous  devintes  parfaite — 
Des  passions  vous  futes  I'interprete." 

"  La  douleur  fut  la  source  et  la  rangon  de  sa  gloirel^  says  another 
writer — and  indeed  such  things  were  for  ever  being  said  to 
her,  as  they  are  now  said  of  her.  Diderot,  with  his  theory  that 
the  actor  should  never  feel  the  emotion  he  pourtrays,  would  have 
been  a  far  more  judicious  critic  for  our  sentimental  genius ! 

She  was  a  small  and  exquisite  creature  :  "  the  best  way  I  can 
describe  her  is  to  say  she's  like  a  miniature — she  has  all  that  sort 
of  charm,  subtlety,  and  delicacy."  Nobly,  on  her  slender  little 
form,  she  carried  her  well-set  head  ;  graceful  and  gracious,  sweet, 
appealing,  wistful.  .  .  .  One  imagines  that  people  felt  vaguely 
sympathetic,  aimlessly  protective,  guessing  her — the  Star  ! — to  be 
ill-starred.  Her  eyes  spoke  as  eloquently  as  her  lips  ;  she  was 
too  thin,  "  but  her  cheeks  were  round  enough."  "  Infinitely 
elegant  and  gracious,"  is  Paleologue's  phrase.  In  the  much- 
vaunted  Coypel  portrait  (which  is  lost,  and  survives  only  in 
Brevet's  great  engraving)  she  is  represented  as  Cornelia,  clasping 
a  funeral-urn.  It  is  pleasant  to  find  R^gnier  and  Monval  on 
our  side  in  deeply  detesting  this  picture.  Michelet,  on  the  other 
hand,  admires  it  intensely :  un  reve  de  douleur^  he  murmurs, 
deeply  moved — but  Michelet  was  ever  the  prey  of  the  senti- 
mental.    Monval   prefers,   and    reproduces,   Fontaine's    picture 


222  ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

(dated  after  her  death).  To  us  neither  is  pleasing.  Since  she 
was  "  Hke  a  miniature,"  what  a  pity  that  the  Abbe  Bouret, 
instead  of  trying  to  poison  her,  did  not  in  that  form,  of  which 
he  was  a  master,  immortalise  her  beauU  mignonne,  her  expres- 
sive and  wistful  grace ! 


There  were  troubles  at  the  Comedie-Frangaise.     Professional 
and  social  jealousies,  rivals,  a  rivale-en-titre^  intrigues,  affronts, 
disappointments.      "  She    had    come    and    broken   la   quietude 
hurlante  of  her  fellow-actors!"    says   a  witty  critic.     She   had 
introduced  new  ideas,  in  fact ;    and  she  was  only   twenty-five, 
while  her  rival  Duclos  was   over   fifty !     Duclos  was  a  plump 
little   pink-and-white   person,   "  and    her    diction    was   like   her 
looks,  affected  and  fluffy."     She  was  frantically  jealous.     There 
was  a  whole  hostile  party,  led  by  the  Quinault  set ;  and  through 
all  Adrienne's  thirteen  years  at  the  Theatre,  professional  rancour 
endured,  and  showed  itself  perpetually.     By  the  public,  however, 
she  was  adored  ;  by  society,  run  after.     It  became  the  fashion  to 
dine   with   her — greatly   to   her  boredom  at  times.     "  I    spend 
three-fourths   of  my  time  in  doing  things  I  dislike."  .  .  .  But 
Adrienne  must  always  have  her  little  moan.     Whether  bored  or 
affected  or  neither  or  both,  she   did   enormously   improve  the 
social  position  of  actresses.     When  she  came  to  Paris,  they  were 
in  that  respect  non-existent.     It  was  to  Adrienne  herself  that 
Lord   Peterborough   (a   reputed   lover !)   said   on   introduction  : 
"  Well,  come !  show  me  lots  of  wit  and  lots  of  love."     We  are 
not  told  how  she  answered  him ;  but  though  he  alone  had  the 
brutality  to  put  his  mental  attitude  into  words,  he  did  express  a 
very   general   view   of  the  actress's  social  function.     Adrienne 
changed   it   all.     She   received   everyone ;  *    she   was   received 
everywhere.     She  cared  deeply  for  her  real  friends  ;  she  cared 
most  passionately  for  friendship.      "We  must  just  feel  it,  and 
believe  in  it ;  'tis  like  a  grace  from  Heaven."    "  Allans  rondenient 
vers  HamitU I"  .  .  .  These  are  wonderfully  cheerful  notes  for  her. 
Inevitably  the  little  moan  came  in  :   for   she  was   desperately 
exacting.     "  It  is  not  worth  while  living  unless  one  can  see  one's 
*  She  lived  in  the  Rue  des  Marais  (now  Rue  de  Visconti). 


ADRIENNE  LECOUVREUR  223 

friends ! "    and  even  the  most  assiduous  did  not   escape  some 
complaining  letters,  in  which  the  words  "  betrayal,"  "  misery," 
"  perfidious,"  chimed  like  little  minute-bells.    But  they  all  forgave 
the   complaints — she  was   so  exquisite  !  .  .  .  And  her  women- 
friends  were  distinguished  ;  her  men-friends  illustrious  ;  her  lover 
(for  she  had  another  lover)  the  most  illustrious  soldier  of  his  day. 
Maurice  de  Saxe !     From  the  moment  they  first  met  in  1721, 
she  never  thought  of  another  man.     She  had  closed  her  heart, 
had  fancied  herself  invulnerable.      D'Argental  had  been  nobly 
repulsed  ;  she  was  sure  that  at  last  she  had  escaped  from  love. 
Maurice  de  Saxe  appeared — and  all  was  lost.    "  She  felt  as  if  she 
was  loving  for  the  first  time,"  and  she  was  loving  for  the  last. 
Amid  turmoil   and   miseries  and  his  countless  infidelities,  she 
adored  him  to  the  very  moment  of  her  death  ;  and  he  preserved 
for  her  what  was  in  him  an  enduring  attachment — they  were 
more  or  less  lih  for  nine  whole  years !  .  .  .  What  shall  we  say  of 
Maurice  de  Saxe  ?     The  natural  son  of  the  Elector  of  Saxony 
(Frederick- Augustus,  afterwards  King  of  Poland)  and  Aurora  de 
Konigsmark,  a  lovely  Swedish  girl,  he   had  all   the  brilliancy, 
vitality,  and  magnetism  from  of  old  attributed  to  an  illicit  origin. 
He  was  the  greatest  soldier  of  his  day,  the  greatest  libertine,  the 
greatest    adventurer.      His    looks    were    dazzling,   his    manner 
fascinating  :   une  brusquerie  familihe — that   trick   of  all  great 
seducers!     He  was  four  years  younger  than  she,  but  he   had 
been  in  the  field,  in   every  sense  of  the  word,  since  his  early 
'teens.     He  had  even  been  married,  but  that  of  course  had  not 
lasted.      Born  near  a  throne,  he  was  always  ambitious  of  one ; 
and  this   it   was  which  in  1725  made   the  first  break  in  their 
liaison.    From  1721  to  1724,  they  lived  blissfully :  the  frail  dainty 
woman,  and  the  Don  Juan  who  could  break  horse-shoes  like 
biscuits  between    his    fingers !      But   inaction   began   to    pall ; 
Maurice  grew  restive,  Adrienne  peevish,  exacting,  tearful.     He 
was  unfaithful  too,  quite  openly.  .  .  .  Something  had  to  happen  ; 
and  what  happened  was  that  the  Duchy  of  Courland  was  offered 
for  sale.    Maurice  rushed  off  to  buy  it,  and  found  that  the  widow 
of  the  late  Duke,  Anna  Ivanovna,  was  prepared,  once  she  beheld 
him,  to  throw  herself  in  with  the  Duchy.     He  was  undeterred — 
even  marriage  might  be  endured  if  he  were  a  ruling  monarch ! 


224  ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

Not  only  so,  but  he  opened  negotiations  with  another  lady  as 
well,  the  Grand-Duchess  Elizabeth  Petrovna.  She  was  the 
daughter  (as  Anna  Ivanovna  was  the  niece)  of  Peter  the  Great. 
Neither  knew  his  double  game. 

But  the  devoted  Adrienne  at  Paris  knew  at  any  rate  a 
part  of  it :  she  knew  that  if  he  succeeded,  she  must  inevitably 
lose  him.  Nevertheless,  when  money  began  to  run  short,  she 
sold  her  jewels  and  sent  the  40,000  livres  they  brought  to 
Maurice.  .  .  .  Were  men  different  in  those  days — or  was  it  only 
he  who  was  different }  He  was  the  born  adventurer ;  and  his 
life,  after  Adrienne's  death,  relieves  us  of  any  sense  of  severity 
in  saying  that  we  believe  him  to  have  been  the  born  "  outsider  " 
as  well.  Not  only  Adrienne  was  helping :  several  other  silly 
women  were  wearing  no  jewellery  just  then — and  there  were  two 
possible  wives  on  the  tapis !  One  knows  not  to  which  of  them 
all  the  incident  is  most  humiliating  ;  but  at  any  rate,  the  whole 
thing  was  a  failure — Courland  slipped  through  his  fingers,  so  did 
Anna  and  Elizabeth,  so,  we  may  be  sure,  did  Adrienne's  money, 
so  did  everything,  in  fact,  except  devoted  Adrienne  herself  He 
came  back  in  October,  1728,  to  her  arms — and  to  the  old  troubles. 
He  was  as  cross  as  a  bear  ;  she,  as  patient  as  an  angel,  most 
intolerably  patient.  .  .  .  He  had  to  "  go  on  "  until  he  aroused 
her,  and  at  last  we  find  this  letter  to  poor  faithful  d'Argental : 
"  I  am  beside  myself,  with  rage  and  misery.  It  is  natural  to  cry 
out  against  such  perfidy.  This  man  ought  to  know  me,  ought  to 
love  me.  .  .  .  O  my  God !  what  are  we — what  are  we  .? "  {0  mon 
Dieu,  qu^est-ce  que  de  nous  ?) 

She  broke  down  under  it  in  the  end.  The  libertine  and  the 
sentimentalist  make  a  bad  pair.  He  was  bored,  she  was  worried, 
to  death ;  and  finally,  the  Duchesse  de  Bouillon,  the  most 
disreputable  great  lady  of  her  day,  intervened.  She  fixed  her 
facile  fancy  (she  was  everybody's  game)  upon  Maurice,  and 
Maurice  was  as  facile  as  herself  There  were  terrible  scenes  with 
Adrienne  :  they  culminated  at  that  famous  performance  oiPhMre, 
when  she  spoke  the  insulting  lines  right  into  the  Duchess's  face. 

"  Je  ne  suis  point  de  ces  femmes  hardies 
Qui,  goutant  dans  le  crime  une  honteuse  paix, 
Ont  su  se  faire  un  front  qui  ne  rougit  jamais." 


ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR  225 

The  house  broke  into  uproarious  applause ;  the  Duchess 
indignantly  left  her  box.  .  .  .  One  speculates  upon  what  Maurice 
de  Saxe  did ! 

When  on  Monday,  March  20,  1730,  Adrienne  Lecouvreur 
died  after  a  few  days'  illness,  all  the  world  whispered  that  word 
so  sinister  to  our  ears,  but  then  almost  a  commonplace  :  Poison. 
Poison  in  a  bouquet,  in  a  lozenge,  in  an  injection  .  .  .  whichever 
it  was,  the  poison  was  put  there,  they  said,  by  the  Duchess  or 
her  agents.  The  lozenge  she  had  indeed  already  tried.  Of  that 
there  is  no  reasonable  doubt  at  all.  The  little  hump-backed 
Abbe  Bouret,  Miniaturist,  was  in  prison  at  that  precise  moment 
for  having  been  her  tool.  Paris  was  still  shuddering  from  the 
scandal.  .  .  .  But  these  very  facts  help  in  a  measure  to  exclude 
the  Duchess  from  the  ultimate  tragedy.  However  eagerly  she 
might  desire  Adrienne's  death,  prudence  must  have  prevented 
her  from  trying  again  so  soon.  Moreover,  for  years  the  actress's 
health  had  been  miserably  bad.  Among  the  other  little  moans, 
this  had  sounded  intermittently.  "  I  haven't  had  twelve  hours' 
health  since  I  saw  you."  ..."  Ma  sant^  me  desesphe^  .  .  , 
And  the  ailment  to  which  her  death  was  officially  attributed  had 
already  nearly  killed  her  in  1725-6.  This  was  dysentery — and  it 
was  of  dysentery  that  she  died.  It  attacked  her  with  appalling 
suddenness  on  March  1 5th,  during  the  performance  of  Voltaire's 
CEdipe^  in  which  she  played  Jocaste.  Her  suffering  was  such  that 
no  one  could  fail  to  observe  it,  yet  she  bravely — and  brilliantly — 
got  through  not  only  her  part  in  the  tragedy,  but  also  that  in  the 
following  comedy.  Then  she  was  carried  home,  "  so  weak  that 
she  could  not  raise  her  arms,"  and  died  four  days  later.  "  She 
went  out  like  a.  candle." 

Maurice  de  Saxe,  Voltaire  ("  her  admirer,  friend,  and  lover," 
as  he  said  of  himself)  and  d'Argental  were  with  her  during  her 
illness  ;  yet  there  were  horrible  scenes — curious  folk  besieging 
the  room,  servants  plundering  everywhere,  and  worst  of  all,  that 
too-frequent  churlish  priest.  This  time,  it  was  Languet  de 
Gergy,  "insolent,  maladroit,  obstinate."  She  was  exhorted  to 
renounce  and  repent  of  her  theatrical  career  before  the  last  rites 
could  be  accorded  her.  She  refused  ;  the  Jesuit  insisted.  Weary, 
and  revolting  against  this  death,  this  destiny,  she  stretched  her 
Q 


226  ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR 

arms,  with  one  of  the  old  lovely  gestures,  towards  a  bust  which 
stood  near,  and  cried — her  last  cry  of  passion  :  "  Voild  mon  universy 
mon  espoir^  et  mon  Dieu  I "  The  bust  was  one  of  Maurice  de 
Saxe. 


All  the  world  knows  the  scandal  of  her  interment.  Christian 
burial  was  refused,  but  that  was  nothing  new  for  an  unrepentant 
actor  or  actress ;  the  unprecedented  horror  in  her  case  was  that 
any  burial  whatever  was  also  refused.  Her  body  was  taken 
wrapped  in  a  sheet,  at  midnight,  in  a  cab  to  a  piece  of  waste  land 
near  the  Seine  and  buried  there  "  ati  milieu  des  chantiers"  then 
covered  with  quick -lime  and  left — the  place  unmarked  by  stone 
or  stick.  D'Argental  discovered  it  in  1786  :  it  was  at  the  south- 
east angle  of  the  Rues  de  Crenelle  and  de  Bourgogne — now  115, 
Rue  de  Grenelle.  He  put  up  a  marble  tablet  inscribed  with 
verses  qui  sentent  le  vieillardy  says  somebody  unkindly.  .  .  .  This 
is  the  great  mystery  of  her  sad,  illustrious  life.  It  certainly 
seems  to  point  to  hushing-up,  to  determination  to  make  a  second 
autopsy  impossible.  There  had  been  one,  and  death  by  natural 
causes  had  been  the  verdict.  Languet  de  Gergy's  reputation, 
evil  as  it  is,  falls  short  of  this  kind  of  brutality :  yet  there  is  that 
strange  letter  from  Maurepas,  then  Minister  for  Paris,  to  the 
Lieutenant  of  Police  :  "  If  they  persist  in  refusing  burial  to  her, 
as  seems  likely^  she  must  be  taken  away  to-night  and  interred 
with  as  little  scandal  as  possible."  .  .  .  No  one  will  ever  know, 
or  understand  more  clearly.  At  the  time,  nothing  was  done. 
Voltaire  tried  to  stir  up  feeling,  did  for  a  time  succeed,  but  it 
died  away ;  Maurice  de  Saxe,  who  could  have  done  everything — 
his  influence  was  incalculable — did  nothing. 

She  was  only  thirty-eight,  and  one  of  the  wonders  of  Paris. 
"  My  lord,"  wrote  d'Allainval  (under  the  name  of  George  Wink 
to  an  anonymous  English  peer),  "if  I  remember  rightly,  you 
reckon  that  there  are  four  marvels  in  Paris :  ist,  the  Tuileries  ; 
2nd,  the  acting  of  Mile.  Lecouvreur."  .  .  . 

"  Celle  qui  dans  la  Gr^ce  aurait  eu  des  autels," 
wrote  Voltaire  passionately  in  his  fine  poem  on  her  death — 


ADRIENNE   LECOUVREUR  227 

"  Sitot  qu'elle  n'est  plus,  elle  est  done  criminelle  ; 
Elle  a  charmd  le  monde  et  vous  I'en  punissez  ! " 

D'Argental  would  not  see  her  after  death.  "  Let  me  remember 
her  as  she  really  was !  " — and  he  kept  her  portrait  always  in  his 
room  until  he  died. 

Maurice  de  Saxe  ?  "  On  coming  out  of  her  house  after 
having  heard  her  last  sigh  " — Maurice  de  Saxe  hurried  off  to  sell 
her  horses.  "  The  natural  action  of  a  horsey  man,"  says  Larroumet, 
no  doubt  with  a  thread  of  irony.  .  .  But  let  us  give  another  trait. 
Voltaire  had  written  her  some  lines  : 

"  Faites  lebien  d'un  seul  et  le  ddsir  de  tous  ! 
Et  puissent  vos  amours  dgaler  la  durde 
De  la  pauvre  amiti^  que  men  cceur  a  pour  vous." 

She  had  shown  them  proudly  to  "/^  seuV^ — perhaps  given  him 
the  copy.  He  made  use  of  them  in  later  years — passing  them 
off  as  his  own — in  a  letter  to  Justine  Favart,  the  victim  of  one  of 
his  most  scoundrelly  intrigues.  The  natural  action  of  an  amorous 
man  }  At  any  rate,  it  sums  up  Maurice  de  Saxe.  We  think  of 
that  cry  of  the  supreme  actress  of  her  day  upon  her  death-bed  : 

"  Voila  mon  univers,  mon  espoir,  et  mon  Dieu  I " 

and  know  not  how  to  be  pitiful,  for  anger — nor  how  to  be  angry, 
for  pity. 


MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA 

"  MALIBRAN  " 
1808-1836 

PEOPLE  passing,  about  18 17,  through  the  Rue  Neuve 
Saint-Marc  in  Paris,  would  often  be  horrified  to  hear 
piercing  shrieks  coming  from  the  upper  window  of  a 
certain  house.  Their  inquiries  would  be  answered  by  the  habiUih 
with  a  shrug :  "  Oh,  that's  nothing !  Only  Garcia  making  his 
pupils  sing."  "  Manuel  Garcia  ?  "  "  That's  it "  .  .  .  And  then, 
those  who  had  seen  and  heard  the  famous  tenor  would  recall  the 
effect  he  had  made  upon  them,  and  shrug  too.  For  Garcia  was 
a  desperate-looking  ruffian — "  more  like  a  Cossack  soldier  than 
an  opera-lover."  Immensely  broad,  overwhelmingly  athletic, 
common-featured  :  the  best  Othello  of  his  day,  and  no  wonder,  for 
he  understood  fury  better  than  he  understood  anything  else  in 
the  world,  except  singing.  He  came  of  a  great  Spanish  family, 
in  which  some  biographers  say  that  there  was  a  hint  of  Jewish 
blood — that  guarantee  of  talent,  especially  in  music  ;  and  he  was 
indeed  a  magnificent  singer,  one  of  those  teachers  too  who  either 
find  or  make  the  great  voices  of  the  world. 

He  made  hjs  daughter  Maria's  voice.  It  was  not  "  there  "  at 
all  in  the  beginning.  They  would  look  at  one  another — she  and 
he  ;  and  he  would  say,  "  Your  voice  must  come  out  in  the  end  ; 
it's  there !  I  feel  it,  I  divine  it."  And  she,  as  strenuous  as 
he,  as  intensely  musical,  and  with  the  additional  incentive  of 
being  desperately  afraid  of  the  appalling  man,  would  begin 
again  the  struggle  with  her  intractable  voice.  He  was  her  creator, 
so  to  speak.  "  There  is  no  such  word  as  Cannot ;  to  fail  is  merely 
want  of  perseverance,"  he  would  say  curtly  to  the  gasping  Maria, 

228 


MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA  229 

as  the  poor  child  tried  her  best — which  was  so  very  bad  that  once, 
after  a  long  day's  work,  Manuel  growled,  "  You'll  never  do  for 
anything  but  the  chorus."  She  tossed  her  head  :  "  I  have  more" 
talent  thdcn  yott,"  she  said,  with  the  foolhardiness  of  terror. 

Truly  Malibran's  voice  went  through   Purgatory — but  the 
Heaven  it  attained  was  worth  it  all. 


Strangely-fathered,  strangely- mothered  little  girl  that  she 
was  !  Her  mother,  Joaquina  Sitch^s,  was  a  mystical  melancholy 
creature,  who  had  been  snatched  from  the  cloister — ardently 
self-chosen — by  one  meeting  with  bull-necked,  golden-voiced 
Garcia !  As  soon  as  they  were  married,  she  became  a  singer, 
actress,  dancer — anything  he  willed  ;  yet  he  was  never  kind  nor 
pleased  nor  satisfied.  Maria  and  her  mother  suffered  deeply  ; 
she  said  in  after-years  to  her  friend,  the  Comtesse  de  Merlin  : 
"  Such  was  the  effect  of  an  angry  look  from  my  father  that 
I  am  sure  I  might  have  jumped  off  the  roof  of  the  house  without 
hurting  myself !  " 

These  unhappy  childhoods  have  a  wonderful  way  of  issuing 
in  greatness :  character  working  in  its  mysterious  fashion 
upon  character.  Violent  temper,  inherited  by  one  who  for 
years  endures  its  devastating  effects,  develops  not  seldom  into 
an  iron  self-control.  "  Tka^  at  any  rate  I  will  not  be." 
The  vehement  repudiation  is  as  passionate  as  the  wrath  which 
calls  it  forth — but  already  the  deviation  from  type  has  begun, 
and  all  the  force  is  unimpaired.  We  get  a  Malibran,  for  instance 
— that  fiery  angel !  Flame,  rising  from  the  nethermost  pit, 
encircled  her  through  most  of  her  life,  and  the  element  was 
after  all  her  own.  Her  wings  could  bathe  in  it,  and  could  lift  her 
again  towards  the  skies,  unscathed  ;  for  she,  who  knew  her  voice 
only  after  long  conflict,  knew  life  no  differently.  To  speak  of 
Malibran  as  ever  having  done  anything  easily  is  to  defame  her ! 
Ernest  Legouve,  in  his  delightful  little  sketch  of  her,  sees  this 
strenuous  quality,  and  gently  derides  the  beautiful  verse  of  De 
Musset,  where  the  great  voice  is  spoken  of  with  the  phrases  de 
ctrconstance.  It  "  soars  ",  it  is  like  a  "  light  perfume,"  it  is  "  fresh 
and  sonorous."      No,  says   Legouve — it  did  and  was   none  of 


230  MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA 

these.  It  was  like  gold  which  has  to  be  dicg  out.  Did  he  not  one 
day  hear  her  practising  for  //  Barbiere^  and  did  not  the  voice  prove 
recalcitrant— and  did  she  not  stop  and  speak  to  it :  "  You  shall 
obey  me !  .  .  .  Oh,  you  know,"  turning  to  her  visitor,  "  my  voice 
and  I  are  old  enemies ! " 


Born  in  Paris,  in  1808,  she  came  to  London  with  her  family 
in  1818  ;  they  lived  at  No.  31,  Gerrard  Street.  She  made  her 
first  appearance  on  the  stage  as  "  one  of  that  unhappy  troupe, 
the  chorus  of  the  Italian  Opera  in  London."  The  troop  is 
perhaps  no  more  unhappy  than  its  patient  audience — it  looks 
self-satisfied  enough  ;  but  we  may  be  sure  that  Maria  Garcia  was 
not  one  of  its  more  complacent  members.  For  by  this  time,  her 
voice  was  found:  "a  mezzo-soprano,  managed  so  well"  (mark 
that)  "  that  one  would  think  she  had  three  diapasons.  She  can 
sing  contralto  also."  Beautiful  quality — beautiful  method  ;  her 
shake  prodigious  .  .  .  had  not  Garcia  and  Maria  conquered  ! 
It  was  in  1823  that  London  was  made  aware  of  all  this.  She 
was  only  fifteen  when  one  night  there  was  a  catastrophe  at  the 
Opera.  The  sublime  Pasta  was  singing  only  on  alternate  nights, 
and  Madame  Ronzi  de  Begnis,  her  alternative,  had  suddenly 
fallen  ill :  the  Barbiere  was  announced  for  that  evening — who 
was  to  sing  the  exacting  part  of  Rosina  ?  Caradori  would  not, 
Vestris  would  and  then  would  not ;  the  manager  tore  his  hair, 
as  managers  seem  to  spend  most  of  their  time  in  doing.     His 

distracted  eye  fell  upon  Garcia's  little  daughter.    Could  she ? 

Garcia  answered  for  her  that  she  could ;  and  she  did,  brilliantly. 
That  exquisite  hypercritic.  Lord  Mount-Edgcumbe,  heard  her  on 
the  trial-night,  and  the  only  word  of  disapproval  that  he  had  to 
say  was  on  the  score  of  prematureness.  Surely  such  precocity 
must  damage  her  future  career }  A  future  career,  hinted  at  by 
Mount-Edgcumbe,  was  enough  :  Maria  Garcia  had  had  her  first 
triumph.  Two  years  later  she  made  her  d/btU  as  acknowledged 
prima-donna  in  the  same  part,  and  was  instantly  engaged  for  the 
rest  of  the  season — ;^500  for  six  weeks. 

When  the  season  was  over,  Garcia  left,  taking  his  family  with 
him,  for  New  York.     He  had  engaged  an  Italian  troupe,  but  he 


MARIA-FELICITA  GARCIA 

and  his  daughter  were  the  stars — and  Maria  soon  justified  that 
young  angry  retort,  "  I  have  more  talent  than  you  ! "  by  becoming 
the  star.  The  enthusiasm  in  New  York  was  frenetical ;  her 
singing,  her  acting,  all  herself,  were  acclaimed  as  something 
hitherto  unknown.  And  that,  indeed,  all  through  her  career, 
was  the  cry  about  Malibran  :  "  There  is  no  one  else  like  her !  " 
Plainly  there  never  has  been  any  one  else  like  her.  What  we 
read  of  Grisi,  even  of  Jenny  Lind,  is  cold,  is  indifferent,  com- 
pared with  what  we  read  of  Malibran.  A  glory  that  was  thrilling 
with  romance,  beauty  answered  by  beauty :  gondolas  and  silver 
trumpets  in  Venice,  the  very  hearts  of  the  people  stirred ;  her 
house  surrounded  till  daybreak  (after  La  Sonnambuld)  by  the 
enraptured  Bolognese ;  the  Naples  audience  rising  en  masse  when 
she  sang  in  Norma ;  the  stability  of  the  Scala  Theatre  in  Milan 
endangered  by  the  tumult  of  delight ;  gold  and  silver  bouquets 
raining  on  the  stage,  gold  and  silver  medals  struck  in  her  honour  ; 
the  Royal  Salute  from  the  guard  in  attendance  at  another  Italian 
theatre ;  a  bust  of  her  enthroned  before  the  Opera-House  in 
Bologna  ;  a  torch-light  procession  "  of  young  nobles  ",  yet  again 
in  Venice,  and  two  gondoliers  bringing  her  a  gilt  cup  filled  with 
wine :  "  Will .  she  touch  it  with  her  lips  before  they  carry  it  out 
to  their  comrades  }  "  And  she  goes  out  on  the  balcony  of  her 
house,  and  there,  with  the  flaming  torches  for  her  footlights,  she 
pledges  Italy  in  Italy's  Red  Wine!  .  .  .  Jenny  Lind's  silver 
candlesticks,  Jenny  Lind's  silver  tea-service — so  useful — seem  a 
little  Teutonic  in  their  excellent  domesticity,  do  they  not  ?  after 
that  glorious,  useless  Latin  folly ! 

And  the  most  delightful  part  was,  perhaps,  that  she  so  loved 
it  all.  No  shrinking  airs  from  her — with  open  hands  she  caught 
her  glory  to  her  heart :  "  Thank  you  !  thank  you  1 "  No 
pretence  from  Malibran :  fame  was  what  she  had  wanted,  and 
fame  was  glorious,  glorious.  "  I  never  have  a  mask  "  :  indeed  she 
never  had.  Read  her  letter  from  Naples  in  1834  :  "  I  am  the 
happiest  of  women  !  My  health  is  perfect,  and  as  to  the  fatigues 
of  the  theatre,  they  are  like  a  sorbet  to  me.  My  voice  is 
Stentorian,  my  body  Falstaffian,  my  appetite  Cannibalesque." 
And  again  :  "  Do  you  know  why  I'm  gay  .•*  Because  it's  lovely 
weather,  and  I  feel  the  spring  in  myself !  .  .  .     Do  come  and 


232  MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA 

bring  the  German  paper — we'll  read  it  together,  for  it  takes  two 
heads  to  read  a  German  paper ! " 

We  maintain  that  only  the  great  natures  are  capable  of  this 
surrender  to  delight.  People  are  so  afraid  of  joy  !  But  Malibran 
was  not  afraid:  joy,  strange  for  long,  strange  always  in  some 
aspects,  was  nevertheless,  whenever  it  did  arrive,  ardently 
welcomed  by — itself! 


She  could  not  have  been  like  that,  though,  had  she  not 
known  too  intimately  joy's  shadow,  pain.  That  came  to  her 
quickly,  by  the  road  which  is  so  often  its  road  to  these  impas- 
sioned natures  :  marriage.  Only  for  one  thing  could  she  thank 
her  first  husband :  his  name,  that  most  perfect  singer's  name — 
Malibran  !  Never  can  we  separate  it  from  Maria  Garcia — though 
she  dismissed  it  so  far  as  might  be  from  her  life,  and  struggled 
to  be  known  as  Madame  de  Beriot.  It  was  not  to  be  :  she  had 
crowned  the  first  name  with  too  immortal  a  glory.  The  name 
deserved  it :  no  more  can  be  said  for  Eugene,  who  began 
by  being  "  mon  cher  petit  choUy"  when  he  was  fifty,  and  she 
eighteen ! 

He  appeared  in  1826,  during  Garcia's  American  season,  and 
brought  bad  luck  with  him.  He  was  reputed  to  be  one  of  the 
richest  merchants  in  New  York,  his  manners  were  distinguished, 
he  had  a  good  social  position — and  she  was  more  and  more 
tormented  by  her  father's  violence.  The  household  was  unhappy  : 
would  it  not  be  well  for  one  at  least  to  escape  .•*  But  neither 
Garcia  nor  the  mother  favoured  Malibran's  suit.  Maria,  with  her 
full  inheritance  of  obstinacy  and  energy  and  vivid  imagination, 
thought  she  saw  a  happy  independence  within  her  grasp :  it 
would  be  better  to  be  one  elderly  man's  darling  than  another 
elderly  man's  slave.  She  "did  everything"  to  marry  Eugene. 
He  kept  the  letters  she  wrote  him  before  and  after  their 
marriage,  and  M.  Martial  Teneo  communicated  them  to  the 
world  through  a  musical  magazine  in  1899.  They  are  not  the 
most  attractive  things  we  know  of  our  Maria  ;  very  much  we  wish 
that  she  had  never  written  them.  "  Petit  chou,  tu  es  un  chat ; 
petit  amour,  tu  es  un  ange  .  .  .  Petit  minet,  ne  m'aimes-tu  pas  1 


MARIA-FELICITA    GARCIA  233 

Bm,  hm,  bm — voila  trois  baisers"  ...  "A  very  Spanish /^;2^/^," 
remarks  Teneo  drily ;  and  when  they  became  actually  engaged, 
the  tone  grows  almost  fulsome.  "  O  bonheur !  vous  m'epousez. 
Je  ne  puis  croire  a  tant  de  bonheur — une  pauvre  fille  sans  talent." 
The  "  poor  untalented  girl "  ought  to  have  been  well  whipped.  .  .  . 
"  You  took  my  hand  when  I  was  going  away — and  joy  kept  me 
awake  all  night.     My  heart  got  as  big  as  the  whole  world  1 " 

That  last  phrase  is  more  like  her.  The  ardent  heart  was 
always  ready  to  get  as  big  as  the  whole  world,  for  the  ardent 
imagination  knew  no  bounds.  She  imagined  herself  into  her 
parts  ;  and  she  imagined  herself  into  love  with  rich,  conventional, 
well-mannered,  secretive  and  deceptive  Eugene  Malibran,  who, 
after  making  brilliant  promises  to  herself  and  her  reluctant 
parents — went  bankrupt  within  a  few  weeks  of  their  marriage, 
which  took  place  on  March  25,  1826.  He  must  of  course  have 
been  aware  that  this  was  impending,  and  Garcia's  fury  knew  no 
bounds.  Certainly  there  was  room  to  suspect  sinister  motives — 
the  gold-mine  he  had  in  his  wonderful  young  wife !  Without 
delay,  that  gold-mine  was  exploited.  The  poor  girl  soon  found 
herself  alone  with  the  defaulting  husband,  for  Garcia  swept 
himself  off  in  a  whirlwind  of  wrath  to  Mexico,  and  took  all  his 
belongings  with  him.  Already,  no  doubt,  disenchantment  with 
Eugene  had  set  in,  for  was  she  not  all  originality,  ambition, 
fervour,  while  Malibran  was  cold,  conventional,  narrow-minded — 
and  the  bankruptcy  may  have  seemed  to  her  a  blessing  in 
disguise,  since  it  forced  her  into  the  activity  which  brings  forget- 
fulness  of  feeling.  The  disillusion  of  sentiment  dwindled  before 
the  material  deception ;  work  was  imperative  now — that  work 
from  which  Eugene  had  been  so  solicitous  to  shield  her !  She 
threw  herself  into  it  heart  and  soul.  She  actually  got  a  troupe 
together,  learnt  English  and  studied  English  music,  that  she 
might  not  be  dependent  on  Italian  singers  only — and  thus  helped 
her  family,  paid  her  husband's  debts:  indomitable,  strenuous, 
rejoicing  in  difficulty,  rejecting  the  word  limit :  "  IVe  been 
trying  to  catch  that  note  for  months — and  I  caught  it  just  as  I 
was  putting  on  my  shoes  this  morning ! " 

When  New  York  was  "sung  dry",  she  went  to  Paris — the 
husband  acquiescing,  and  staying  where  he  was.     In  Paris  she 


234  MARIA-FELICITA  GARCIA 

was  at  once  befriended  by  the  lovely  Creole,  Mercedes,  Comtesse 
de  Merlin  (once  a  pupil  of  Garcia),  who  had,  among  amateurs, 
an  illustrious  voice.  Mercedes  eagerly  welcomed  the  dark-haired 
slender  girl,  gave  a  party  for  her,  whither  she  came  with  her 
voice  and  her  atmosphere  of  romance  and  passion,  and  set  the 
room  ablaze  with  enthusiasm.  She  sang,  accompanying  herself 
at  the  piano,  the  pure  line  of  her  head  and  shoulders  standing 
out  in  that  most  becoming  of  all  postures.  Very  pure  indeed 
was  the  line — her  hair  in  the  flat  smooth  bands  which  she  always 
adopted,  when  extravagant  coiffures  were  the  mode  ;  her  "  rather 
large  mouth,  rather  short  nose  "  detracting  from  perfect  beauty, 
until  you  looked  at  the  eyes — and  forgot  all  else  in  the  face. 
Those  eyes  had  an  atmosphere  ;  they  were  dark  with  reverie, 
charged  with  passion,  the  eyes  of  one  who  would  die  young — 
haunting,  sibylline,  immeasurably  sad  .  .  .  And  she  sang  the 
Willow-Song  from  Otello !  Legouv6  (at  last  officially  a  music- 
lover)  "  felt  like  a  man  going  up  in  a  balloon."  For  long  he  had 
striven  against  the  absurdest  family  tradition :  his  father  had 
disliked  music  and  had  a  cracked  voice,  and  so  it  was  considered 
disloyal  to  his  memory  to  care  for  music.  Young  Legouve  had 
made  some  attempts.  He  had  gone  to  the  Opera,  and  had  said 
timidly,  on  his  return,  "  II  me  semble  que  j'aime  la  musique  } " 
"  Mais  non ! "  he  was  instantly  reminded.  "  Ton  pere  avait  la 
voix  fausse  !  "  For  a  year  or  so,  he  submitted  ;  then  broke  out 
again,  "J'aime  la  musique,  moi !  j'aime  la  musique," — and  this 
time,  stuck  to  his  guns !  But  hitherto  his  experiences  had  been 
quite  ordinary — now,  he  was  listening  to  Malibran.  "  She  was 
an  Initiator ! "  he  cries,  "  an  Illuminator  of  the  Soul !  We  did 
not  understand,  but  now  we  understand  ;  we  did  not  love,  but 
now  we  love ! " 

She  sang  first  at  the  Grand  Opera — the  French  house — in 
Semiramide.  It  was  a  popular  triumph,  but  the  critics  had 
faults  to  find.  Fetis,  the  dragon  of  the  Revue  Musicale,  was 
very  angry  with  her.  "  She  has  everything  to  ensure  success, 
but  her  singing  is  utterly  devoid  of  taste  and  method  ;  she  uses 
far  too  much  ornament ;  her  breathing  is  badly  managed."  .  .  . 
There  was  truth  in  this.  Sometimes,  in  the  struggle  with  the 
rebel-voice,  she  fell  into  exaggeration  in  the  effort  to  win  ;  and 


MARIA   FELICITA   GARCIA  ("  MALI  BRAN ') 

FROM    A   LITHOGRAPH    AFTER   THE    DRAWING    BY    H.    GREVEDON 


»  o  «  r  -    £> 


MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA  235 

in  these  evil  days  she  wanted  success  so  badly  that  she  descended 
to  gallery-tricks  to  gain  it.  Paris  soon  cured  her  of  all  that ;  no 
longer  did  she  mix  her  styles  like  a  salad,  no  longer  did  she 
indulge  in  meaningless  ornament — for  Paris,  she  gladly  realised, 
was  not  New  York  :  Paris  wanted  the  best.  The  relief  of  such 
a  discovery  to  the  artist's  soul  is  incalculable.  She  began  to 
feel  happy,  despite  the  crosses  of  her  daily  lot.  She  was  housed 
with  her  husband's  sister,  Mme.  Chastelain — spying,  prying, 
insolent,  vulgar,  and  avaricious  ;  a  woman  who  starved  her 
servants,  and  exploited  the  generous,  heedless  Maria  until  even 
Maria's  suspicions  were  awakened.  "  I  can  only  calculate  by 
tapping  my  fingers  on  my  nose,"  she  wrote  to  Eugene,  "but 
even  /  can  see  that  this  is  unfair.  I  hope  you  will  judge  me  as 
I  deserve ;  if  you  don't,  I  shall  be  sorry,  but  nothing  will  make 
me  alter  my  arrangements."  Her  letters  to  him  at  this  time 
begin  by  being  affectionate,  "  CJier  petit  chou "  actually  still 
remains  in  her  vocabulary — but  gradually  the  tone  changes,  he 
becomes  "  dear  Eugene " ;  she  helps  him,  regards  that  as  her 
duty,  but  hopes  he  will  keep  away.  "  Everyone  has  a  reason 
for  marrying.  Mine  was  to  be  happy  and  tranquil  .  .  .  but  yott, 
will  remember.  One  can  forgive,  but  not  forget.  Well,  that 
was  my  motive  in  marrying.  I  would  rather  not  know  yours.' 
She  finally  left  the  Chastelains,  and  went  to  live  with  Mme. 
Naldi,  an  old  friend  of  her  mother.  Such  was  the  private  life 
that  ran  alongside  with  the  glory ! 

For  Paris  was  soon  entirely  her  own.  Her  Desdemona  (the 
part  she  preferred  to  all  others)  created  a  furore.  It  was  against 
the  rules  at  the  Italian  Opera — where  she  was  now  engaged, 
having  abandoned  the  French  house — for  artists  to  appear  before 
the  curtain.  But  for  twenty  minutes  after  the  second  act,  the 
audience  called  her — the  rule  had  to  be  broken :  she  appeared. 
Crowns  and  wreaths  of  flowers  rained  on  the  stage,  copies  of 
verses  too — people  broke  into  verse  most  wonderfully  in  those 
days  !  At  the  end  of  the  opera,  there  was  a  regular  riot :  every- 
one was  standing  up  and  shouting.  She  appeared  at  last,  and 
"  the  ladies  flung  every  flower  they  wore  at  her  feet."  That  was 
on  June  25th,  1828.  On  July  ist,  she  took  her  benefit,  and 
"  received  seventy-two  bouquets  and  crowns." 


236  MARIA-FELICITA  GARCIA 

Her  acting  was  as  remarkable  as  her  singing.  In  it,  too, 
she  tended  to  exaggeration :  Chorley,  in  his  A  thenceum  article 
on  her  death,  uses  a  startling  phrase.  "  Her  acting  (in  Fidelio) 
was  not  carried  to  that  excess  which  almost  seemed  to  threaten 
life  or  reason."  .  .  .  There  is  something  disquieting  in  such  a 
criticism — and  Chorley  was  no  lukewarm  admirer.  "First 
among  the  first,"  he  says  elsewhere,  "she  was  and  is.  .  .  .  We 
may  notice  other  performances — hers  we  can  only  record^  for 
criticism,  which  can  teach  others,  goes  to  school  to  Malibran." 

Eccentric,  restless,  wayward — and  frail  of  body :  what  are 
we  to  think  of  the  woman  who  acted  in  the  style  described  by 
her  critic }  The  question  arrests  us.  Mad  she  was  of  course 
called  ;  something  else  she  was  called  also.  It  was  said  that 
Malibran  drank  to  excess.  Untrue  :  of  that  we  are  convinced — 
but  the  public  wants  easy  answers  to  difficult  questions,  and  the 
question  of  Malibran's  psychology  was  an  immensely  difficult 
one.  Her  eccentricity  was  extreme,  her  restlessness  abnormal. 
"  M'as-tu  jamais  connu  tranquille  }  Ni  moi  non  plus  ",  she  wrote 
to  her  husband ;  and  what  she  was  in  private,  that  she  was  in 
public  also.  Her  private  life  was  all  turmoil — dancing,  riding, 
talking,  studying :  she  knew  everything.  Her  love  of  her  own 
art  was  intense  and  consuming,  and  "  she  had  an  innate  percep- 
tion of  beauty  in  every  art — pictures,  architecture,  Latin  Classics, 
the  poetry  of  Dante  and  Goethe,  the  drama  of  England  "  ;  she 
spoke  four  languages  perfectly — Spanish,  French,  Italian,  English, 
and  understood  German  well ;  she  played  the  piano  brilliantly, 
caricatured  brilliantly,  and — the  one  tranquil  thing  we  know  of 
her  ! — sewed  and  embroidered  exquisitely.  Fragile,  like  all  such 
burning  natures,  and  utterly  tameless  in  her  energy ;  avid  of 
danger,  angry  because  she  could  not  fight  for  Liberty  in  the 
Revolution  of  1830:  "a  hero's  soul  with  no  heroism  to  do," 
sums  up  Legouv^ — "  voild  Malibran."  ...  So  spontaneous  ! 
Sontag  is  singing  more  divinely  than  ever,  one  year  in  Paris, 
and  Malibran  hears  her  and  glories  in  her,  and  then  suddenly 
the  great  eyes  fill  with  tears  of  envy :  "  Ponrqtwi  chante-t-elle  si 
bien,  mon  Dieu .'"...  The  trait  of  jealousy  in  artists  has  its 
curious  obsessions.  One  rival  will  triumph,  and  no  pain  is  felt ; 
another — the    Destined,  as   it  were! — can    do   nothing  without 


MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA  237 

torturing  them.  Sontag  played  that  part  in  Malibran's  life.  It 
was  the  contrast,  no  doubt — which  might  just  as  well  have 
had  the  directly  opposite  effect.  All  was  ease  and  purity  with  - 
Sontag :  her  voice  was  like  a  flood  of  light.  They  were  so 
different  that  rivalry  was  absurd,  says  Castil-Blaze.  "Thanks 
to  the  three.  Pasta,  Malibran,  and  Sontag,  I  have  heard  Des- 
demona  sung  to  perfection.  The  Roman  Empire  was  not  con- 
quered by  one  General ! "  .  .  .  But  the  really  astounding  coup 
de  destin  was  that  Sontag  should  also  have  been  Malibran's 
rival  in  love !  De  Beriot  had  wanted  to  marry  the  lovely 
Henriette,  and  she  had  flirted  with  him  and  then  rejected 
him.  He  had  fainted,  he  had  torn  his  hair,  he  had  talked  of 
suicide.  ...  In  1830,  two  things  happened.  Sontag  married  ' 
the  Comte  de  Rossi,  Ambassador  from  the  King  of  Sardinia  at 
the  Hague ;  and  Malibran  met  De  Bdriot.  It  was  a  strange 
juxtaposition.  Malibran  and  Sontag  had  sung  together  in 
public  for  the  first  time  on  January  8  ;  and  again,  on  the  day 
of  Son  tag's  farewell  (January  18) — one  of  those  duets  of  whose 
"fantastic  and  ideal  perfection"  Castil-Blaze  speaks.  Sontag, 
gathering  the  crowns  which  were  thrown  to  both,  but  which 
Malibran  and  she  alternately  (in  the  absurd  delicious  convention 
which  enchants  us  all  at  the  Opera  !)  heaped  into  the  other's 
arms — Sontag  felt  the  tears  fill  her  eyes,  an  agony  of  regret 
contract  her  heart.  Friends  consoled  her.  ^^  Maintenant,  vous 
etes  comtesse  !  "  "  Oui — mais  f^tais  reine  !  "  She  had  abdicated, 
and  Malibran  reigned  alone.  De  Beriot,  not  yet  stiicide,  moped, 
but  played  divinely  on  his  fiddle ;  Malibran's  warm  heart  went 
out  to  him — he  played  so  beautifully,  he  was  so  unhappy.  .  .  . 
She  fell  in  love  at  first  sight.  "  I  will  never  play  the  coquette  ! " 
she  had  once  declared,  and  she  did  not  now.  When  she  and  De 
Beriot  met  again  the  same  year  in  Brussels,  she  "  let  him  know 
she  loved  him" — and  De  Beriot  acquiesced.  By  183 1,  they 
were  lovers. 

And  now,  for  the  first  time,  we  find  our  fearless  Maria  afraid 
of  something.  Since  she  had  ceased  to  see  her  father,  she  had 
forgotten  what  fear  was  like.  Now  she  was  afraid — of  public 
opinion !  The  liaison  was  kept  profoundly  secret  at  first ;  and 
the  first  serious  quarrel  arose  from  De  Beriot's  disdain  for  the 


238  MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA 

gossip  which  to  her  was  a  nightmare.  He  was  going  to  Russia 
on  a  professional  engagement,  and  he  asked  her  to  go  with  him. 
The  proposal  horrified  her.  He  ought  to  have  been  more  careful 
of  her  reputation,  she  thought.  Her  feeling  issued  in  a  quarrel 
which  was  patched  up  by  his  sending,  as  a  farewell-gift  before 
starting,  a  magnificent  harp.  She  instantly  learned  to  play  upon 
it,  and  thenceforth  accompanied  herself  in  the  Willow-Song  in 
Otello.  But  De  Beriot  blundered  again  on  his  return.  This  time 
he  invited  her  to  Brussels,  where  he  was  then  playing — and  baited 
the  hook  with  the  offer  of  a  lucrative  engagement.  Again  she 
was  furious,  and  as  they  were  actually  lovers,  it  was  not  reason- 
able, De  Beriot  thought — with  some  justification.  He  said  so, 
and  he  prevailed.  She  went  to  Brussels  ;  soon  they  built  a 
beautiful  house  at  Ixelles,  "and  were  never  separated  after- 
wards." 

But  it  was  not  all  happiness  yet.  That  spectre  of  public 
opinion  irrelevantly  haunted  Maria.  Of  all  women,  one  would 
have  said  in  one's  haste  that  she  would  be  the  last  to  care  for  the 
qtien  dira-t-on.  On  reflection,  however,  one  sees  that  her  very 
violence  of  eccentricity  in  imagination,  her  abnormality,  her 
effervescence  were,  in  a  sense,  the  reasons  for  this  apparent 
incongruity.  Everything  was  "  keyed  up "  by  her  exuberant 
fancy.  Where  a  calmer-natured  woman  would  have  rested  in  her 
own  sense  of  justification,  and  shrugged  her  shoulders  at  the 
gossip  or  the  fancied  coldness — Malibran's  vehement  heart  was 
stirred  to  its  depths  by  the  sense  of  degradation.  She  saw  an 
insult  everywhere,  and  wept  bitterly  at  the  thought  of  such  a 
thing  ;  she  frantically  strove  against  the  publicity  which  grew 
daily  more  inevitable — "  she  would  not  sing,  she  could  not  sing  " 
.  .  .  and  then,  like  lightning,  "  Yes,  she  would !  for  then  the 
public  could  never  think  that  she —  "...  And  lo  I  at  the  end  of 
the  first  act  of  Semiramide^  she  locks  herself  into  her  room  :  "  I 
will  not  sing  again  !  "  She  did  not  sing  again,  and  the  angry 
audience  remembered  it  against  her  for  long. 

So,  with  periods  of  joy,  the  private  life  ran  until  the  long- 
sought  divorce  from  Eugene  was  obtained.  In  1833,  the  year  of 
the  great  tour  in  Italy  with  Lablache,  her  son  had  been  born — 
Charles  Wilfrid  "  de  Beriot."     That  had  accelerated  matters,  but 


MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA  239 

there  had  been  international  puzzles,  questions  of  Eugene's 
citizenship.  ...  At  last,  in  1836,  freedom  and  happiness  came. 

She  married  De  Beriot  the  same  year,  on  March  26th.  That 
night,  she  heard  Thalberg  play  for  the  first  time — and  Thalberg 
heard  her  sing.  It  was  an  electrifying  evening.  "  Oh,  madame  ! 
oh,  madame ! "  stammered  Thalberg,  utterly  overcome ;  and  she 
interrupted  his  playing  with  her  sobs.  They  had  to  carry  her 
away,  but  she  came  back  in  five  minutes.  "  Now  it's  my  turn  ! " 
And  then  Thalberg  wept.  .  .  .  Well !  it  was  wonderful.  "  One 
only  gets  married  once  in  one's  life !  "  she  cried — could  anything 
be  more  Malibranesque  ?  Eugene  was  forgotten  as  if  he  had 
never  been. 

Later  in  the  year,  she  came  to  London.  Among  her  favourite 
amusements  was  riding  :  De  Beriot  disliked  this,  "  but  he  knew  it 
would  be  useless  to  oppose."  She  went  out  one  day  in  April  on 
a  fiery,  borrowed  horse.  She  had  not  ridden  for  some  time,  and 
this,  combined  with  her  state  of  health,  made  her  nervous.  The 
horse  ran  away ;  she  fell,  and  was  dragged  along  a  stony  road  for 
thirty  yards,  her  head  beating  against  the  flints  all  the  time.  She 
was  fearfully  cut  and  bruised,  but  so  soon  as  she  recovered  con- 
sciousness, her  one  thought  was  to  keep  the  knowledge  of  her 
accident  from  De  Beriot.  "  I  will  perform  this  evening  as  usual." 
She  told  him  she  had  fallen  downstairs,  and  she  sang  that  night ! 
She  would  consult  no  doctor.  Headaches  became  frequent — 
nervous  attacks,  too.  The  great  Lablache,  one  of  her  dearest 
friends,  grew  terribly  uneasy.  Though  she  was  sometimes  happy 
and  gay,  her  spirits  alternated  wildly :  everything  pointed  to  a 
lesion  of  the  brain. 

In  September,  she  returned  to  England  for  the  Manchester 
Festival.  From  the  very  day  of  her  arrival  there,  she  seemed 
doomed.  There  were  hysterics,  fainting-fits — then  exquisite 
singing— then  more  fainting-fits.  "  She  looked  like  a  beautiful 
spectre  :  her  face  was  full  of  suffering  and  melancholy." 
.  .  .  On  September  13th,  she  sang  the  Duet  from  Andronica, 
*'Vanne  se  alberghi  in  petto,"  with  Madame  Caradori,  and 
executed  "  a  fearful  shake  at  the  top  of  her  voice " — on  the 
high  B  flat,  in  fact.  It  electrified  the  audience  ;  they  demanded 
an  encore.     If  they  had  seen  her,  fainting  in  the  wings !  and  seen 


240  MARIA-FELICITA   GARCIA 

how  gradually  the  uproar  of  applause  broke  through  the  merciful 
unconsciousness,  and  the  great  eyes  opened  darkly.  ...  "Do 
they  want  me  again  }  If  I  sing,  I  am  a  dead  woman."  "  Do  not 
sing,"  said  Sir  George  Smart,  "  I  will  make  your  excuses  to  the 
audience."  "  No !  I  will  sing  "  ;  and  she  sang  that  tremendous 
shake  again,  more  "  fearfully  "  even  than  before — and  in  ten  days 
from  that  thirteenth  of  September,  Malibran  was  dead. 


"  Coeur  d'ange  et  de  lion,  libre  oiseau  de  passage, 
Espi^gle  enfant  ce  soir,  sainte  artiste  demain  ! 

Qu'as-tu  fait  pour  mourir,  6  noble  crdature, 
Belle  image  de  Dieu,  qui  donnais  en  chemin 
Au  riche  un  peu  de  joie,  au  malheureux  du  pain. 

C'est  ton  ame,  Ninette,  et  ta  grandeur  naive, 
C'est  cette  voix  du  coeur  qui  seule  au  coeur  arrive, 
Que  nul  autre,  apres  toi,  ne  nous  rendra  jamais. 

Le  Ciel  de  ses  dlus  devient-il  envieux  ? 

Ou  faut-il  croire,  helas  !  ce  que  disaient  nos  peres, 

Que  lorsqu'on  meurt  si  jeune  on  est  aim^  des  dieux  I " 


"  I  shall  die  young,"  she  had  said  long  since,  and  perhaps  the 
gods  were  kind.  Voice  or  woman  must  die — that  is  the  singer's 
doom  ;  and  Malibran  would  never  have  submitted  to  the  death  of 
her  voice,  which,  worn  by  its  own  intractability,  would  have  died 
sooner  than  other  women's.  "She  would  have  been  sure  to 
struggle  :  a  desperate  combat,  a  heart-rending  spectacle  it  would 
have  been,"  says  Legouv6.  And  De  Musset  sang  of  her  death 
and  of  herself  in  those  lovely,  imperishable  verses. 

So  we  try  to  console  ourselves,  it  may  be.  .  .  .  But  she  was 
only  twenty-eight ! 


GIULIA  GRISI 

I 808- I 869 

"  ^  I  ^HE  Italians  have  brought  back  to  us  the  season  of 
I         cavatinas,  bouquets,  delightful  evenings — that  charming 

A  season  when  the  dilettanti  are  in  their  seventh  heaven, 
clapping  their  hands  as  a  bird  claps  its  wings  .  .  .  and  passionately 
exalting  each  his  favourite  tenor  or  prima-donna." 

So  wrote  some  one  in  the  Revue  des  deux  Mondes  for  October 
15,  1840,  when  there  re-appeared  at  the  Italian  Opera  House  in 
Paris  the  most  wonderful  vocal  quartette  that  the  musical  world 
has  ever  seen.  Lablache  the  incomparable ;  Tamburini,  the 
"legendary  baritone"  ;  and,  in  1840,  Mario,  that  sort  of  fairy- 
prince  of  the  Opera,  who  had  succeeded  to  Rubini,  the  king  of 
tenors.  The  contrast  between  them  was  precisely  that  between 
a  king  and  a  fairy-prince.  Round  Giuseppe  Mario,  Marquis  de 
Candia,  a  halo  of  romance  hung  shimmering — and  still  hangs. 

The  lady  of  the  quartette  was  Giulia  Grisi,  then  thirty-eight 
years  old.  She  had  been  singing  almost  ever  since  she  could 
speak.  Niece  of  the  famous  Grassini,  (who  had  been  the  Queen 
of  Song  in  Paris  in  1798,)  she  was  already  "talked  about"  at 
twelve.  Milan  was  her  birthplace,  as  one  feels  it  ought  to  be  of 
all  great  singers:  in  1808  she  followed  her  sister,  Giuditta,  into 
the  world  which  was  to  be  for  both  the  world  of  song.  Judith 
and  Julia — the  names  already  announce  themselves  ;  and  Judith 
was,  we  read,  an  even  finer  vocalist  than  her  far  more  famous 
younger  sister.  Does  not  this  at  once  arrest  us  ?  What  is  the 
secret  of  Julia's  more  glittering  career  ? 

It  is  easy  to  say — Luck :  the  "  accident  of  time ",  which 
included  her  in  that  renowned  quartette.  But  one  likes  to  think 
that  it  was  something  more  personal :  beauty,  (she  had  great 
R  241 


242  GIULIA   GRISI 

beauty,)  tragic  genius,  character — in  the  genuine,  not  the  vulgar, 
sense  of  the  word.  Yet  with  a  great  singer's  "  character  ",  in  that 
sense,  we  feel  instinctively  that  the  public  has  nothing  to  do. 
How  little  one  ever  knows  of  it,  how  little  for  that  matter — and 
oddly  enough — one  ever  even  thinks  of  it !  Hearing  them, 
watching  them,  hardly  at  all  do  we  speculate.  *'  What  kind  of 
woman  ^  what  kind  of  man  ^ "  No.  Their  personal  privacy  is 
almost  cloistral ;  if  gossip  concerns  itself  with  them — but  even 
gossip  is  partly  baffled — it  speaks  always  only  of  externals. 
W/iat  they  do — never,  one  might  almost  say,  is  wJmt  they  are^  its 
theme.  And  as  this  is  true  of  contemporary  singers,  so  it  was 
true  of  Giulia  Grisi.  Much  was  written  of  her  singing,  of  her 
personal  beauty,  at  the  time  of  her  supremacy :  nothing  of  her 
character.  Perhaps  the  Opera  is  our  modern  legend  ;  certainly 
the  stars  seem  almost  as  remote  as  the  actual  constellations : 
"  Twinkle,  twinkle,  little  Star — How  I  wonder  what  you  are ! " 


Her  professional  career  began  at  twenty,  in  a  forgotten  opera 
by  Rossini ;  then  for  four  years  she  enchanted  Bologna,  Florence, 
Pisa — waiting  for  Milan  and  La  Scala.  At  last  the  great  night 
came  :  she  appeared  as  Adalgisa  ("  creating "  the  part)  to  the 
Norma  of  Pasta.  She  triumphed  ;  and  then,  Milan  conquered, 
Paris  became  the  dream  of  the  future.  At  twenty-four  (1832) 
she  realised  it:  at  the  Italian  Opera  she  appeared  on  October 
16,  as  Semiramide,  in  Rossini's  work  of  that  name.  She  was 
desperately  nervous,  but  again  she  triumphed.  The  Journal  des 
Debats  had  an  enthusiastic  article  :  "  Her  brilliant  mezzo-soprano 
voice,  so  true,  so  firm  .  .  .  her  noble  bearing,  the  grace  and  truth- 
fulness of  her  gestures,  her  charming  head,  carried  so  proudly 
on  that  neck  which  painters  and  sculptors  would  compare  to  a 
swan's  .  .  .  these  are  the  many  advantages  which  have  helped 
to  achieve  so  great  a  success."  From  that  time  she  was  the  idol 
of  Paris — Paris,  the  queen  of  taste !  There  remained  only 
London  ;  and  to  London  she  came  in  April,  1834,  making  her 
dMit  at  the  King's  Theatre  as  Ninetta  in  La  Gazza  Ladra^  a 
now  neglected  opera  by  Rossini.  Julie  Grisi — so  she  styled 
herself,  in  acknowledgment  of  the   Paris  hearts ;  la  jolie   Grisi 


GIULIA   GRISI  243 

they  retorted,  "  to  distinguish  her  from  her  sister,"  as  the  London 
A  thenceum  unkindly  reports. 

"It  is  long  since  we  have  seen  so  triumphant  an  appearance- 
upon  the  boards.  .  .  .  Her  looks  are  sufficient  to  make  a  favour- 
able first  impression  ;  her  voice  and  style  and  (perhaps  above  all) 
acting,  confirm  it ;  all  three  leave  little  or  nothing  to  be  wished. 
.  .     Her  execution  is  indeed  at   times   exuberant — the   duet- 
cadence  in  the  prison-scene  with  Rubini,  we  must  protest  against 
as  out  of  place  and  out  of  taste.  .  .  .     She  possesses  first-rate 
powers  as  an  actress  ;  to  be  brief,  we  prefer  her  Ninetta  to  any 
we  have  seen,  and  long  to  see  her  in  other  parts — Desdemona, 
for  instance."      So  wrote  Chorley  of  the  AthencBum.     But  alas  ! 
when  Chorley  did  see  her  in  Desdemona,  he  was  disappointed. 
"  Parts  of  her  performance  were  excellent  "  ;  (to  think  that  there 
was   once   a   time  when  that  phrase  could  be  used   in  serious 
writing !)  "  but  in  other  places  energy  and  abandon  were  wanting. 
...     It  is  possible  that,  like  most  of  our  contemporaries,  we 
may  have  over-rated  a  little  the  power  of  this  delightful  actress." 
However,  when  in  the  same  week  she  appeared  in  Don  Giovanni^ 
as  Donna  Anna,  **  she  sang  and  acted  herself  back  into  our  first 
opinion  of  her."     In  July,  we  find  the  Athencenm  still  staunch  to 
that  first  opinion :  she  appeared  in  //  Barbiere  and  "  seemed  to 
act  from  the  inspiration  of  the  moment.  .  .  .     Worn-out  as  the 
opera  is,  it  is  worth  coming  any  distance  to  see  it  with  its  present 
cast."  *  At  the   close  of  the  season,  the  summing-up  was  that 
Grisi's  Ninetta  was  "  her  best  and  only  faultless  serious  effort. 
Her  Rosina  in  //  Barbiere  left  us  nothing  to  wish.     In  other 
parts  there  were  brilliant  points,  but  a  want  of  sustained  energy. 
.  .  .     We  look  forward  with  confidence  to  a  day  when  she  may 
challenge  a  Pasta  or  a  Schroeder  on  their  own  ground,  without 
the   chance   of  a   defeat.  ...     As   to   voice,  and   skill   in   the 
management  of  it,  she  has  nothing  to  desire  or  to  learn." 

So  there  is  London  ;  and  now — what  is  left }  Nothing  more 
can  be  done  with  our  voice  ;  our  face,  our  form,  both  are  perfect 
— la  bellissima^  la  jolie :  these  are  phrases  of  which  we  have  had 
a  surfeit.  In  this  way  it  was,  no  doubt,  as  suggested  by  a  writer 
in  Le  Monde  Dramatique,  that  Grisi  became  too  eager  for  praise 
as  an  actress.     "  May  we  hint  to  our  beautiful  diva  that  flattery 


244  GIULIA   GRISI 

is  fatal  to  pretty  women  as  well  as  to  Kings !  We  ruined  Pasta 
and  Malibran  by  over-praising  their  acting.  Undoubtedly,  Grisi 
is  a  born  actress — but  a  woman's  physique  is  not  strong  enough  to 
stand  the  double  strain  of  acting  and  singing.  Carried  away  by 
her  dramatic  instinct,  Grisi  now  sometimes  sings  out  of  tune." 
What  did  she  do,  one  speculates  ?  Did  she  content  herself 
with  the  marvels  of  her  voice,  or  did  she  continue  to  force  the 
dramatic  note  .«*  Her  acting  must  have  been  delightful.  The 
same  writer  elsewhere  describes  it  as  a  mixture  of  "  nafve  childish 
grace,  of  Italian  impetuosity,  of  audacity,  of  pride,  of  musical 
enthusiasm."  .  .  .  This  rhapsody  was  thrown  off  by  Henri  Blan- 
chard  in  a  most  amusing  article  upon  the  regrettable  habit  which 
actresses  had  acquired  of  getting  married.  "  It  is  the  ruination 
of  the  drama — this  craze  for  getting  married.  Marriage,  that 
microbe  which  kills  every  delightful  fancy !  When  I  hear  our 
lovely  Grisi — can't  you  see  how  that  very  word  ^  our^  permits, 
even  encourages,  hopes  } — I  tell  myself  that  she's  free,  that  she's 
an  artist,  that  she's  sure  to  be  capricious,  like  every  other  pretty 
woman  .  .  .  and  then,  perhaps,  in  an  interval,  her  eye  catches 
mine — she  sees  how  I  appreciate,  how  I  adore  her  .  .  .  and  I 
say  to  myself  *  Perhaps  .  .  .  why  not  2 '  You  can  call  me  an 
unmentionable  kind  of  idiot,  if  you  like — what  do  I  care  ?  Well, 
suppose  next  day,  I  get  a  great  copper-plate  letter,  telling  me 
that  Grisi  is  going  to  be  married !  What  do  I  do  .>*  I  abjure 
music  ;  I  never  set  foot  in  the  Italian  Opera  again  ! " 

This  was  certainly  very  entertaining,  and  had  a  marked 
influence  upon  Grisi's  conduct.  The  very  next  year  (1836), 
when  she  was  twenty-eight,  she  married,  in  London,  Monsieur 
Gerard  de  Melcy !  But  Henri  Blanchard  .  was  not  forced  too 
long  to  absent  himself  from  the  Opera  :  in  two  years,  Melcy  had 
a  duel  with  Lord  Castlereagh  "  d  catise  de  Grisi "  ;  and  shortly 
after  that,  the  married  pair  were  separated.  Melcy's  career  was 
short,  and  remains  obscure,  though  every  Frenchman,  at  any  rate, 
can  predict  the  fate  of  "  the  diva's  husband  " — cloaks  over  his 
arm  while  he  waits  in  the  wings,  hot-water  bottles,  draught- 
protectors,  contracts,  impresarii  .  .  .  une  vie  denfer !  .  .  .  And 
so  little  Grisi,  with  the  imperious  raven  head,  could  once  more, 
if  she  wanted  to,  awaken  delicious  hopes  in  Henri  Blanchard's 


GIULIA   GRISI   AS   "NORMA' 

FROM   AN   ENGRAVING   AFTER   THE    PICTURE   BY   A.  E.  CHALON,  R.  A. 


GIULIA   GRISI  245 

too-sophisticated  heart,  when  their  eyes  met  in  an  interval  and 
she  saw  that  he  adored  her. 

But  indeed,  what  if  we  were  to  compare  dates  ?  what  if  we 
were  to  find  that  in  1838,  just  two  years  after  the  Melcy-marriage, 
there  appeared  at  the  Academie  Royale  de  Musique — the  Fairy- 
Prince  ! 

There  was  a  handsome  young  officer  singing — like  many 
another  of  his  comrades — in  Parisian  drawing-rooms  in  1836. 
He  was  twenty-six,  he  was  extraordinarily  good-looking  ;  but 
there  were  probably  others  like  him  in  these  respects  also.  There 
was  just  one  enormous  difference.  This  handsome  young  officer 
had  one  of  the  most  ravishing  tenor  voices  that  the  world  has 
ever  heard.  Fresh,  pure,  velvety,  "  full  of  morbidezza  " — a  voice 
incomparable  among  amateurs.  And  then,  his  grace,  his  high- 
bred air,  his  beauty.  .  .  .  Paris  is  a-flutter,  when  one  fine  day, 
what  happens  t  The  Management  of  the  Opera  comes,  of  its 
own  accord,  to  ravish  the  ravishing  voice  !  Actually  the  Directors 
approached  him — the  drawing-room  amateur — with  an  offer  of 
1 500  francs  a  month,  if  he  would  take  to  the  stage.  And  so  the 
descendant  of  the  Dukes  of  Candia,  "  impelled  by  an  irresistible 
vocation,"  became  a  professional  singer.  He  made  his  d^bM  at 
the  Academie  Royale  de  Musique  on  December  2nd,  1838,  in  the 
name-part  of  Robert  le  Diable^  acting  as  M.  de  Candia — soon, 
however,  altered  to  Mario.  His  success  was  instantaneous :  how, 
indeed,  could  he  have  failed !  "  The  handsome  dark-eyed  singer, 
with  his  clear-cut  profile  and  his  graceful  figure,  conquered  the 
house  at  once."  .  .  .  And  the  conquerors  conquered  one  another. 
They  were  married  some  time  after  1848 ;  but  long  before  that, 
they  were  lovers,  rivalling  one  another  only  in  mutual  adoration. 
That  most  perfect,  and  most  rare,  of  all  unions  was  theirs — 
similarity  of  aim,  equal  success,  unclouded  and  unenvious  joy  in 
one  another's  glories. 

The  glories  fell  in  showers — it  was  wonderful !  Grisi,  who 
had  "created"  Adalgisa,  in  Bellini's  Norma,  soon  became  the 
great  Norma  of  her  day.  "  From  the  moment  she  appeared  with 
the  golden  sickle,  her  brow  crowned  with  vervain,  her  rapt  look 
communing  with  the  skies,  it  became  impossible  to  imagine  any- 
one else  in  the  part."     The  sweet  melancholy  grace  of  her  Casta 


246  GIULIA  GRISI 

Diva,  "  when  from  her  lips  it  scarcely  drips — the  echo  of  sweet 
singing  "  (she  especially  affected  the  chant  d  demi-voix)  combined 
with  her  exquisite  acting  to  make  the  perfect  Norma.  In  / 
Ptiritani,  that  much-decried  opera  by  Bellini's  dying  hand,  she 
made  a  real  furore.  The  famous  Polacca,  Son  vergin  vezzosa, 
sent  London  quite  mad.  It  was  heard  at  every  concert,  some- 
times three  or  four  times  a  day,  with  wild  enthusiasm  ;  then  the 
same  people  would  come  again  to  the  Opera  to  listen  to  it.  And 
there,  again,  her  histrionic  gift!  In  the  first  acts,  her  "girlish 
and  buoyant  happiness  "  ;  in  the  concluding  ones,  her  "  wayward 
and  passionate  melancholy  " — this  must  indeed  have  been  some- 
thing very  different  from  the  operatic  acting  with  which  we  are 
acquainted  !  Her  personal  beauty  too  was  really  extraordinary  : 
it  was  the  thing  in  which  she  was  superior  to  all  other  artists.  In 
Lucrezia  Borgia  (at  Mario's  London  d^btlt  in  1839),  for  instance, 
"  she  put  on  for  the  character  such  a  malicious  and  fascinating 
beauty  as  befits  a  witch."  Taglioni  danced  after  the  opera  that 
night — so  they  had  a  Witch,  and  a  Sylph,  and  a  Fairy-Prince. 

Great  nights :  now-a-nights,  difficult  to  imagine.  Ensemble 
we  do  not  now  boast  at  the  opera.  If  we  have  a  fine  tenor,  a 
fine  soprano,  a  fine  anything,  we  are  nearly  off  our  heads ;  in 
those  days,  the  Athenceum  grumbled  at  the  chorus.  If  we  began 
to  grumble  at  our  chorus — !  But  indeed  we  are  good-humoured  : 
we  do  not  grumble  at  all ;  we  go  mad,  with  the  best  giants  of 
those  days,  over  one  Florentine  Nightingale  in  a  season,  and 
humbly  take  the  tenors  we  can  get,  and  are  thankful.  For 
remember  that  "  Giulietta  "  Grisi — as  she  now  announced  herself, 
and  one  seems  to  divine  a  love-word  in  the  romantic  change  of 
name — had  an  ideal  Romeo.  Mario  excelled  in  parts  which 
demanded  grace  and  high-breeding ;  his  grands  seigneurs  were 
the  Real  Thing.  A  perfect  Almaviva  {Nozze  di  Figaro),  he  was 
such  a  Don  Ottavio  {Don  Giovanni)  as  no  one  could  have  dreamed 
of  who  had  not  seen  him.  And  to  hear  him — hear  that  voice 
from  Heaven,  breaking  into  //  mio  tesoro\  In  a  word,  it  was 
romance  incarnate  behind  the  footlights. 

"  The  Lyric  Drama  ",  says  Castil-Blaze,  in  his  History  of  the 
Opera-Houses  of  Paris,  "  is  like  a  religion  :  everyone  has  his 
own  way  of  looking  at  it."     But  we  beg  to  differ  from  Castil- 


GIULIA   GRISI  247 

Blaze.  Italian  Opera,  "  Star-Opera  " — like  a  religion  !  Not  a 
bit  of  it.  On  such  a  night,  humanity  breaks  out  in  every  direction, 
eyes  are  bright  with  all  sorts  of  vanities  and  excitements.  We" 
hurry  to  our  seats,  (the  corridors  a-hum !)  we  rustle  with  the  rest 
of  the  rustling  ...  oh,  that  atmosphere,  that  movement  of  an 
expectant  star-house.  The  parterre  glitters,  glistens,  gleams. 
From  a  high-hung  box,  it  may  be,  we  look  down  upon  the  slender 
languid  forms  (every  one  looks  slender  and  languid  from  that 
height),  the  ineffable  graceful  worldliness  of  the  whole  thing,  the 
luxury  implied  in  all  these  listeners  assembled  to  hear  one  man 
or  woman  (or,  as  then,  three  men  and  one  woman)  display  the 
result  of  years  of  training, — of  whole  lives,  indeed,  of  sacrifice  to 
Art  and  Glory  !  It  has  all  been  done  for  us  to  hear,  and  when 
the  cavatina  is  over,  the  melting  voice  no  more  in  mazes  running 
— it  is  a  duel  between  the  diva  and  her  audience  for  which  shall 
render  the  most  gracious  gratitude.  We  lean  out,  we  stand  up, 
hands  cannot  make  enough  of  it,  so  we  find  ourselves  crying 
"  Divine,  divine  1  "  .  .  .  and  her  lips  are  moving,  too,  the  smiles, 
the  bows  are  not  enough  for  her — yes !  they  are  delightful 
evenings,  those  on  which  "we  feel  once  more  the  adorable 
sensations  which  Italian  music  can  give  us." 


For  fifteen  years,  Giulia  Grisi  so  reigned — a  Queen  of  Song. 
Even  the  Jenny  Lind  fever,  in  1847,  did  not  dethrone  her.  "  She 
could  take  her  place,"  wrote  Theophile  Gautier,  "  beside  Malibran 
on  the  vacant  golden  throne  "  :  she  did  take  her  place,  literally, 
beside  Malibran  in  London  in  1835.  They  sang  together  at  one 
of  Benedict's  Morning-Concerts.  "  We  cannot  speak  of  it  calmly  " 
— so  Chorley  panted.  "  It  was  the  most  splendid  and  inspired 
performance  of  its  kind  we  ever  heard.  ...  A  higher  pitch  of 
delight  than  we  dare  venture  to  record."  That  was  how  they 
could  write  in  those  days,  and  the  unprofessional  adorers  would 
break  into  song : 

"  O  exquisitftNinetta— O  lovely  Giulietta  ! 
O  nymph  of  raven  tresses  !  a  lost  young  man  confesses —  " 

and  he  was  assuredly  a  young  man  who  found  his  phrases  for 
himself,  for  "  Her  voice  comes  out  in  mellow  shout  \ "  he  cries, 


248  GIULIA   GRISI 

"  O  gracious,  golden  Grisi !  "  And  so  the  gracious  golden  days 
and  nights  went  on.  But  she  was  not  only  brilliant ;  she  was 
hard-working,  she  was  even  conscientious — ugly  word !  which 
nevertheless  to  worried  impresarii  and  directors  has  its  beauty. 
"  Of  all  the  artists  of  the  day,  she  was  perhaps  the  one  who  most 
seldom  disappointed  the  public  on  any  pretext  whatsoever." 
Lanari,  her  first  manager,  was  alone  in  suffering  from  her  caprice. 
He  was  a  character — and  a  manager — of  the  first  order :  it  was 
he  who  said  of  himself  one  day,  "  I  am,  after  God,  the  first  of 
impresarii^'  and  then,  reflecting,  added,  "  Indeed,  I  think  it  may 
be  said  that,  among  impresarii  I  am  the  True  God."  After  this, 
our  heart  goes  out  to  Lanari  in  his  every  trouble  ;  and  he  had 
many  with  Judith  and  Julia.  But  that  was  in  Julia's  young  days, 
and  Lanari's  contract  was  constrictive  :  it  kept  her  for  four  years 
to  such  parts  as  Adalgisa — the  secondary  parts.  She  ran  away  ; 
for  a  long  time  he  could  not  find  her  ;  the  Venetians — it  was 
from  Venice  that  she  fled — would  have  no  one  but  "  la  celeste 
Giulia"  Lanari  tore  his  hair,  called  on  Bellini,  on  Meyerbeer,  to 
intervene  ;  but  all  in  vain.     He  did  not  get  her  back. 

*'  She  was  a  bundle  of  nerves,"  observes  Arditi,  another  im- 
presario by  the  Grace  of  God.  Under  his  direction,  she  and 
Mario  sang  in  the  latter  years  of  their  triumphs,  and  he  has  many 
anecdotes  to  tell.  Grisi  was  frantically  jealous  about  her  Fairy- 
Prince  ;  she  could  not  bear  him  to  be  admired  by  other  women. 
As  he  was  one  of  the  handsomest  men  of  his  time,  she  had  many 
vexations.  A  Miss  Giles,  "  from  Gloucestershire,"  very  rich,  very 
sentimental,  and  not  very  young — so  Grisi  need  not  have  minded 
— fell  desperately  in  love  with  him.  She  followed  him  every- 
where. No  matter  where  he  sang.  Miss  Giles  appeared,  bought 
her  box,  and  every  night,  as  soon  as  Arditi  raised  his  baton,  he 
would  see  the  "  gaunt  grey  figure "  sitting  expectant  above  the 
stage.  She  would  wear  her  filmiest  laces,  her  costliest  brocades  ; 
from  above  a  splendid  fan,  her  eyes  would  attach  themselves  to 
Mario's  face  and  there,  dead  to  all  else,  she  watched  and  wor- 
shipped— "like  a  sphinx,  a  tremendous  riddle."  Grisi  could  not 
stand  it.  "  It  drives  me  mad"  she  cried,  pinching  poor  unwor- 
shipped  Arditi's  arm  black-and-blue  in  her  nervous  excitement ; 
"  I  can't  sing  if  she  comes  to-night !  "   She  came — and  Grisi  sang ; 


GIULIA  GRISI  249 

but  "  if  eyes  could  kill ! "  .  .  .  The  papers  actually  had  articles 
upon  it ;  but  Mario  was  totally  impervious,  he  cared  for  one 
woman  only  and  that  was  his  Giulietta.  And  still,  and  still,  Miss~ 
Giles  followed.  Once  when  he  was  ill,  she  called  at  his  hotel 
every  morning  to  inquire,  and  when  the  waiter  brought  good 
news,  she  gave  him  a  "double  eagle."  Then  Mario  went  to 
America.  Miss  Giles  appeared  on  board,  "  arrayed  in  lilac-silk, 
with  a  fragile  breath  of  a  bonnet,  trimmed  with  orange-blossoms," 
— and  when  somebody  asked  her  casually  if  she  thought  Mario 
handsome,  Jshe  went  into  hysterics.  .  .  .  But  Grisi  could  not 
laugh  :  her  strenuous  soul  refused  to  see  the  fun.  "  She  has  the 
evil  eye  ;  whenever  she's  on  our  trail,  we're  unlucky  " — and  Arditi's 
arm  suffered  again.  Who'd  be  an  impresario  ?  It  was  so  plainly 
Mario's  arm  which  ought  to  have  been  black-and-blue ;  but 
Mario,  handsome,  amiable,  and  amused,  got  off  scotfree.  Was 
Miss  Giles  present,  we  wonder,  at  the  performance  in  Washington, 
when  Norma  was  played  and  the  weather  was  so  cold  that  Grisi 
had  to  come  on  in  a  huge  fur  cloak,  huddled  up  to  her  eyes,  and 
Mario  made  his  appearance  holding  a  coachman's  umbrella  over 
his  head — for  the  roof  of  the  theatre  had  given  way  under  a 
heavy  fall  of  snow,  and  its  coating  of  ice  was  streaming  down  on 
the  artists ! 

Agonising  at  the  moment,  but  what  food  for  laughter  in  the 
reminiscent  hours — adventures  such  as  this  and  the  Irish  ones, 
when  the  stars  descended  to  "  plain-cooking  "  at  the  hotels  which 
Ireland  will  not  Gallicise.  At  meals,  they  would  appear — Grisi, 
Mario,  Giuglini,  enchanting  singer,  but  most  unattractive  man, 
Tietjens  the  majestic, Piccolomini  (^//^  Violetta  oiLa  Traviata)^2xs. 
artist  of  supreme  attraction,  though  not  a  diva  among  divas  ;  and 
expectantly,  but  not  quite  hopefully,  they  would  sit  down,  and 
watch  the  dish-covers.  "  What  will  they  disclose  ?  Not — oh  ! 
not  boiled  fowl  or  veal."  .  .  .  But  it  was  always  one  or  the  other. 

Piccolomini  and  Giuglini  were  the  enfants  terribles  of  the  troop. 
On  Tietjens — good-natured,  massive  Tietjens,  the  destined  butt 
— they  played  a  cruel  practical  joke.  She  carried  with  her  an 
enormous  quantity  of  clothes,  used  to  take  a  room  for  her  ward- 
robe alone.  And  the  rogues  got  into  this  room,  stuffed  out  all 
the  dresses,  put  masks  on  the  shoulders,  and  seated  the  figures 


250  GIULIA   GRISI 

on  chairs  all  round — a  dozen  of  them !  Then,  lights  low  and 
mysterious  :  Tietjens  enters  to  choose  a  gown.  .  .  .  Shrieks, 
^pouvante.  "  Did  you  think  the  ghosts  of  your  characters  had 
come  to  haunt  you  ? " 

A  merry  troop,  merry  days,  and  gracious  golden  nights,  when 
the  glorious  voices  came  out  "  in  mellow  shout."  .  .  .  But  what 
is  this  we  hear?  A  whispered  name  :  Adelina  Patti\  It  is  the 
Serpent  in  Eden. 

For,  alas !  the  Opera  is  peculiarly  the  world  where  the 
loveliest  things  have  the  shortest  life.  "  Voices  drop  away  like 
rose-leaves  "  ;  Time  waits  for  us  in  the  wings,  frowns  at  us  from 
the  footlights.  .  .  .  For  fifteen  years  to  be  a  Queen  of  Song !  It 
did  not  satisfy  our  strenuous  Giulia.  In  1848,  she  did  retreat: 
she  was  only  forty  then.  If  she  had  but  said  (as  Rubini  had), 
"  It  is  time — for  it  is  too  soon  "  ;  but  instead,  the  energetic  fiery 
creature  said,  "  It  is  time — for  it  is  not  too  late  "  ;  and  gathered 
the  dropped  rose-leaves,  and  vehemently  told  herself  that  they 
made  a  rose.  .  .  .  Let  us  not  follow  too  closely  the  Funeral  of  a 
Rose.  "  Much  solicited  "  ;  "  still  great "  ;  "  it  must  ha^e  been 
felt  to  be  a  mistake  "  ;  "  we  understand  that  her  engagement  is 
cancelled."  .  .  .  Cruel  succession  of  phrases,  which  culminates 
in  "  Will  it  be  believed  that  she  consents  to  allow  herself  to  be 
announced  again  1 "  and  "  this  undignified  pertinacity."  She 
saw  the  notices  :  think  of  it !  Yet  while  we  thrill  to  the  pathos, 
we  cannot  but  recall  the  sensations  with  which  ourselves  have 
heard  a  faded  singer,  and  ache  to  remember  that  pity,  that 
respect,  were  all  too  weak  to  vanquish  the  other  things  we  did 
not  wish  to  feel,  yet  felt — and  worst  of  all,  that  detestable  sense 
of  doubt,  disbelief :    Was  she  ever^  then^  so  wonderful  f 

Till  1866  it  dragged  on.  Then  at  last  she  understood.  She 
made  her  last  appearance  in  Lucrezia  Borgia — that  opera  in 
which  she  had  displayed  "  the  fascinating  beauty  of  a  witch,"  the 
opera  which,  strangely  enough,  had  seen  the  last  appearance  of 
Sontag,  and  was  to  see  the  last  appearance  of  Tietjens. 

She  retired  to  her  "  delightful  house  at  Fulham,  where  Mario 
indulged  in  a  mania  for  photography."  She  had  two  daughters 
(she  had  had  four,  but  the  two  eldest  had  died  in  1862),  she  had 
troops  of  distinguished  friends,  her  Fairy-Prince,  despite  financial 


GIULIA  GRISI  251 

storm  and  stress — he  had  lost  nearly  all  his  money  in  disastrous 
speculations — was  still  romantic,  handsome,  as  devoted  as  ever. 
And  yet  we  wonder — did  Giulia  Grisi  ever  know  happiness 
again  ?  "  She  went  frequently  to  the  Opera,  a  longing  ghost." 
.  .  .     Sunt  lackrymcB  rertim. 


As  if  her  loyal  lover  would  not  be  superior  to  his  Giulietta  in 
anything,  the  sentence  goes  forth  for  Mario  too :  He  was  heard 
too  long.  In  1869,  he  was  still  singing  at  St.  Petersburg.  She 
was  on  her  way  to  join  him  there,  when  she  was  suddenly  taken 
ill  at  Berlin.  It  was  inflammation  of  the  lungs.  She  died  on 
December  3,  1869,  after  a  few  days'  illness.  He  was  not  able  to 
reach  her  in  time  ;  and  so  in  death  they  were  divided — by  Song, 
which  had  brought  them  together. 


MARIE   TAGLIONI 

1804-^  (?)— 1884 

"  II    yr  AN  was  made  of  a  little  mud  and  water  :  why  should 

I  \/ 1       not  a  woman  be  made  of  dew,  of  rays  of  light,  of 

JLl  JL     bits   of    condensed   rainbow  ? "      A   writer   in    the 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  for  August,  1840,  quotes  these  words 

from  one  whose   pen  was  active  almost  a  century  before,  and 

adds,  "  The  author  of  this  phrase  must  have  foreseen  Taglioni." 

Plainly  there  never  has  been,  before  or  since,  a  dancer  to 
compare  with  her.  One  of  her  effects  upon  her  critics  was  that 
she  drove  them  to  vie  with  each  other  in  extravagant  metaphors, 
amusing  to  collect :  "  A  drop  of  water  on  a  branch  of  coral/' 
"  An  angel  returning  to  the  sky."  "  The  soul  of  a  young  girl, 
dying  of  love."  None  of  these  quite  rings  the  bell.  "  Lighter 
than  the  gauze  which  the  wind  agitates  in  passing "  :  more  de- 
scriptive, but  perhaps  smacking  of  the  ready-made.  "Like  a 
flake  of  foam  " — we  are  getting  nearer.  "  A  feather  swept  from 
a  swan  by  the  wind."  That  will  do :  the  prize  for  metaphor 
goes  to  this  ingenious  fellow. 

And  the  comparisons !  "  Gazelle "  was  the  favourite,  for 
Taglioni  walked  like  no  other  dancer  on  earth.  "  Her  feather- 
like, snow-fall  resumption  of  the  tread  of  earth  is  beyond  de- 
scription. Her  bound  upwards  is  graceful  and  natural ;  it  is  her 
coming  back  again  that  is  supernatural ! "  So  said  the 
Athenceum^  and,  this  time,  said  better  than  all  the  rest  what  all 
the  rest  were  trying  to  say. 


To  find  a  date  of  birth  for  a  dew-drop,  a  snow-flake,  bears 
absurdity  on  the  face  of  it ;  and  nobody  has  really  found  one  for 

252 


MARIE  TAGLIONI 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING    AFTER    THE    DRAWING    BY    H.    GKEVEDON 


MARIE  TAGLIONI  253 

Marie  Taglioni.  The  guesses  range  between  1804  and  1809; 
droll  Henri  Blanchard  (in  Le  Monde  Dramatique)  hints  that 
even  1809  ^^.y  be  premature.  Like  Grisi,  she  inherited  her 
actual  talent  from  an  illustrious  aunt ;  but  on  both  sides  her 
relatives  were  distinguished.  Her  grandfather  was  a  famous 
singer  called  Karsten,  a  great  favourite  of  Gustav  HI.,  King  of 
Sweden.  Karsten's  daughter  married  Philip  Taglioni,  who  was 
Ballet-Master  and  Principal  Dancer  at  the  Stockholm  Theatre. 
She  herself  was  an  exquisite  player  on  the  harp.  .  .  .  Why  does 
this  talent  so  peculiarly  charm  us  in  a  great  dancer's  mother? 
We  know  not ;  we  only  know  that  it  does.  .  .  .  And,  as  we 
have  said,  Philip  Taglioni's  sister  was  renowned :  his  two  sisters 
indeed  were  dancers,  "but  so  lovely  that  they  were  snatched 
from  the  boards  before  they  could  make  their  names."  One  was 
a  dazzling  beauty  ;  she  married  Count  Contarini,  a  Venetian 
nobleman,  and  people  used  to  say  that  "they  were  going  to 
Venice  to  see  it  and  its  belle^  the  lovely  Countess  Contarini." 

La  Taglioni  was  not  a  pretty  woman.  In  Le  Monde 
Dramatique^  a  little  quaint  head  confronts  us.  The  hair  is 
dressed  in  the  very  midsummer  madness  of  the  barber :  two  big 
bows  of  it  above  the  flat  parting,  a  roulade  of  sausage-curls 
down  each  side.  .  .  .  Difficult,  from  a  head  like  this,  to  dis- 
entangle the  real  Taglioni,  but  at  any  rate,  the  small  resolute 
face  below  is  not  a  beauty's.  Too  resolute  it  is  for  that !  Never 
did  lips  more  closely  close,  never  did  nose  more  possess  the 
centre — and  too  widely ;  never  did  eyes  less  dewily,  less  enigma- 
tically, meet  our  own.  It  is  rumoured  that  the  Sylph  was  a 
Shrew — and  the  portrait,  alas!  gives  Rumour  none  too-con- 
vincingly  the  lie.  A  kind  of  dainty,  stubborn — if  necessary, 
ruthless — hardness  is  the  dominant  impression  it  makes  upon  us. 
Resolution,  endurance,  must  be  needed,  at  any  rate,  in  the 
dancer's  life.  Of  all  arts,  it  surely  is  the  most  exacting  ;  and 
Marie,  who  began  the  study  of  it  at  eight  years  old,  had  in  her 
father  a  terribly  exacting  master.  Philip  Taglioni  was  at  the 
head  of  his  profession :  he  had  ideas,  revolutionary  ideas,  about 
the  costume  de  ballet.  "  Away  with  paniers,  fripperies,  powder 
d  la  marechale  !  "  cried  he — and  away  accordingly  they  went.  He 
composed  ballets  as  well  as  he  danced  them.     Marie,  in  a  word. 


254  MARIE  TAGLIONI 

grew  up  in  an  atmosphere  of  entre-chdts^  jetis-battus — which  mean, 
in  the  language  of  the  ballet,  "  I  am  madly  in  love  with  you ! " 

She  was  "madly  in  love"  with  it,  and  indeed  we  cannot 
discover  that  she  was  ever  very  much  in  love  with  anyone  or 
anything  else — except,  perhaps,  money.  But  if  she  was  rapacious 
(and  some  of  her  managers  said  she  was),  she  was  genuinely 
ambitious  too.  Beginning  study  at  eight,  as  we  have  said,  she 
threw  herself  into  her  art  with  all  her  young  energy  and  resolution. 
Her  father  could  not  be  too  exacting  for  Marie  ;  she  wanted  to 
be  a  danseuse  hors  ligne — "  she  would  rather  have  been  a  milliner 
than  a  second-rate  dancer."  She  made  her  dibilt  at  Vienna  on 
June  loth,  1822,  when,  if  the  birth-date  1809  be  correct,  she 
would  have  been  only  thirteen.  It  seems  hardly  possible  that 
a  girl  should  be  a  finished  dancer  at  that  age  ;  and  very  decidedly, 
at  any  rate,  Henri  Blanchard's  gallant  hint  of  "  mime  un  ptii  plus 
tard"  becomes  incredible.  Her  father  had  written  the  ballet : 
Reception  d'une  jeune  nymphe  d  la  cour  de  Terpsichore.  His 
universal  cleverness  stopped  short,  we  perceive,  at  titles,  for 
nothing  could  be  worse  than  this  ;  but  the  ballet  thus  disfigured 
was  an  excellent  one,  admirably  designed  for  its  purpose — the 
display  of  a  debutante.  The  "  nymph  "  had  to  pass  certain  tests 
before  she  could  win  admission  from  Terpsichore.  Marie's 
success  was  dazzling,  she  passed  them  all — or  rather,  she  did  not 
pass  any  of  them  ;  for  so  excited  was  she,  that  she  forgot  all  the 
rehearsed  effects  and  actually  had  to  improvise  her  first  steps  in 
public.  "  Inspiration !  only  genius  could  have  produced  such 
surprises  " — and  she  was  eight  times  recalled.  This  forgetfulness 
— or,  in  later  years,  rejection — of  the  prepared  steps  was  frequent 
with  her.  Brilliant  things  she  would  do  at  rehearsal ;  then, 
entering,  "in  a  state  of  intellectual  exaltation,"  would  fling 
every  one  of  them  aside.  "  What  I  have  rehearsed  is  ordinary  : 
I  must  do  better  than  that\"  And  better  than  that  she 
apparently  always  did,  for  "  her  inventions  were  exquisite." 

After  Vienna,  Munich ;  and  after  Munich,  Paris — by  special 
favour  of  Munich,  who  "  lent "  her  for  a  month  to  the  Acaddmie 
Royale  de  Musique.  There,  on  July  23,  1827,  she  appeared  in 
Le  Sicilien.  Every  other  dancer,  living  or  dead,  was  at  once 
effaced !    There  was  only  one  dancer  in  the  world  now :   there 


MARIE  TAGLIONI  255 

never  had  been  one  before.  Paris  went  crazy,  as  Paris  then 
alone  knew  how.  "  Fanaticism  "  :  so  Henri  Blanchard  called  it. 
"  Her  dibM  at  Paris  marks  the  fourth  epoch  of  our  theatrical . 
dancing,"  writes  a  student  of  the  Ballet ;  and  indeed  she  was 
much  imitated.  To  taglioniser  became  a  recognised  phrase :  it 
meant  a  reproduction — attempted  or  achieved — of  her  ineffable, 
airy  elegance. 

After  her  triumph,  she  disappeared  "  like  a  shadow,"  back  to 
Munich,  but  came  again  next  year,  presenting  Les  Bayadhes. 
Returning  in  1829,  she  danced  as  Psyche  in  Gardel's  ballet,  then 
performed  for  the  nine-hundred-and-fifth  time  !  Her  Psychi  was 
a  master-piece,  and  the  Academic,  resolved  to  beat  Munich  this 
time,  engaged  her  for  fifteen  years. 

All  sorts  of  delicious  things  happened  then  in  the  ballet. 
There  was  a  Duet  with  Mile.  Montessu  (in  Guillaume  Tell)  when 
the  orchestra  ceased,  and  they  danced  to  a  Tyrolienne  sung  by 
the  chorus  ;  there  was  Taglioni's  famous  tour  de  force  of  dancing 
with  clasped  hands  ;  there  was  that  enchanting  tableau  with  the 
rose-coloured  scarves  in  Le  Dieu  et  la  Bayadhe^  when  all  the 
pretty  shimmering  things  were  brought  into  a  shell-shaped  tribute 
before  her  feet,  to  figure  Venus  rising  from  the  sea.  .  .  .  Nor 
was  that  all.  Taglioni  and  Mile.  Noblet  danced  a  pas  de  deux 
"  which  recalled  the  duets  between  Sontag  and  Malibran."  .  .  . 
Here  is  enthusiasm  indeed.  Sontag  and  Malibran — it  seems  a 
trifle  strong  ;  but  no !  A  writer  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes 
gravely  reproves  us.  "  When  a  dancer  like  Taglioni  appears,  she 
gives  to  the  boards  of  the  theatre  the  same  odour  of  sanctity  as 
reigns  in  the  studio  of  a  great  artist."  Oh,  there  was  no  reserve 
about  Paris!  Lovely  phrases  filled  the  air:  "Like  a  ray  of 
sunlight  in  winter,"  "like  a  drop  of  dew  in  the  desert"— like 
anything  aerial,  in  short,  that  happened  to  come  into  their  heads. 

The  word  which  came  oftenest,  which  positively,  as  Henri 
Blanchard  said,  "  got  on  our  nerves  ",  was  Sylph.  Her  dancing 
in  the  ballet  oi  La  Sylphide  was  "  beyond  description — lighter, 
more  vaporous  than  ever,  if  possible."  "  I  can  never  believe," 
said  one  writer,  "  when  I  see  her  in  La  Sylphide  that  Taglioni  is 
a  woman— a  woman  like  Mile.  Noblet,  for  example.  Even  if  she 
lost  her  marvellous  faculty  of  leaping  into  the  air  every  instant .  .  . 


256  MARIE  TAGLIONI 

her  very  walk  would  prove  her  superiority.  Taglioni  moves  like 
a  gazelle."  Her  name  is  for  ever  associated  with  this,  "the 
prettiest  of  ballets,"  says  Thackeray,  in  Pendmnis,  "  now  faded 
into  the  past  with  that  most  gracious  and  beautiful  of  all  dancers. 
Will  the  young  folks  ever  see  anything  so  charming,  anything  so 
classic,  anything  like  Taglioni  1 " 

The  young  folks,  one  fears,  did  not,  and  do  not.  Even  to 
our  darling  Adeline  Genee,  we  cannot  feel  that  the  Taglioni 
phrases  belong.  "  Taglioni  was  of  the  elements  "  ;  "  she  needed, 
as  it  were,  super  terrestrial  parts."  The  Sylph  was  supposed  to 
be  invisible.  You  could  believe  that  she  was,  with  your  eyes 
glued  upon  her.  Something  more  than  we  have  seen  in  the 
ballet  is  implied  in  such  art — or  such  a  physical  aptitude — as 
that.  And  looking  through  the  folio  published  in  London  in 
1 83 1,  containing  six  sketches  of  her  by  A.  E.  Chalon,  R.A., 
drawn  from  life  "in  the  characters  in  which  she  has  appeared 
during  the  present  season  ",  we  can  catch,  even  now,  the  peculiar 
airiness,  the  "  superterrestrial "  effect,  she  produced.  The  little, 
clear  drawings  present  a  figure  which  scarcely  seems  to  touch  the 
earth.  There  are  accompanying  verses,  with  the  inevitable  dew- 
drops-comparison  : 

"  They  sink  to  slumber  with  a  sound 
Like  thy  own  footfall  on  the  ground 
So  faintly  soft— so  lightly  dear 
It  flings  no  echo  on  the  ear." 

Flings  disconcerts  us :  the  word  is  too  suggestive  of  effort  to 
stand  near  the  gossamer  creature ;  but  Mr.  F.  W.  R.  Bayley,  our 
poet,  redeems  himself  by  quite  a  charming,  childlike  conceit 
when  he  cries : 

"  Thou  art  so  like  happiness, 
We  can  hardly  love  thee  less !  "  .  .  . 

Perhaps  her  costume  helped  the  illusion  a  good  deal.  Dearly  as 
we  prize  the  "  microscopic  tulle  petticoat "  (which  Taglioni  held 
in  horror,  deeming  it  offensive  to  the  human  form),  we  must 
confess  that,  despite  Degas  and  his  filmy  ladies,  it  does  destroy 
the  aerial  sense.  Muscular  a  dancer  cannot  but  be,  and  the  tulle 
petticoat  makes  no  secret  of  it.     Taglioni's  narrow,  long  draperies 


MARIE  TAGLIONI  257 

did.  Unimaginably  slender  she  contrived  to  look,  without 
looking  thin  at  all.  The  tiny,  closely-dressed  head  was  another 
aid ;  no  "  running  over  with  curls,"  no  enlargement.  Close  to  the 
line  of  the  head  lay  the  glossy  dark  hair,  for  in  her  professional 
coiffure  there  were  none  of  the  eccentricities  shown  in  her  portrait 
(alluded  to  above),  as  a  private  person.  The  small  determined 
face  was  sweeter  so :  in  one  of  the  drawings,  Taglioni  is  almost 
pretty.  .  .  .  But  one  divines  that,  watching  her  movements,  you 
never  remembered  her  face. 

Her  modesty  of  costume  was  a  source  of  distress  to  various 
**  august  personages."  Why  the  adjective  ?  one  asks  one's-self,  for 
this  aspect  of  Sovereigns  has  little  of  the  august.  It  seems  to 
have  been  only  to  Sovereigns,  oddly  enough,  that  it  was  dis- 
tressing— or  perhaps  it  is  only  their  anguish  which  has  been 
thought  worthy  of  record.  One  of  them  "  in  Austria,"  asked  her 
if  she  could  not  contrive  to  wear  shorter  petticoats.  She  asked  him 
if  he  was  married.  "  Non,  Madame"  "If  you  were,  should  you 
like  to  see  your  wife  and  daughters  in  short  petticoats } "  "  Et 
pourquoi  non  ?  "  said  he.  But  he  was  not  to  get  off  with  that. 
"  You  will  permit  me  not  to  believe  in  the  sincerity  of  that  reply." 
...  No  doubt  the  august  personage  thought  her  as  disappointing 
as  her  petticoats. 

The  Emperor  Nicholas,  again,  when  she  danced  at  St. 
Petersburg,  simply  refused  to  believe  that  "  you  couldn't  see  her 
knee."  He  came  down  from  his  box  into  the  stalls  to  recon- 
noitre— to  see  whether  he  could.  But  even  an  Imperial  Vision 
failed.     On  this  occasion,  however,  Taglioni  was  "  much  amused." 

She  set  the  fashion,  despite  august  disappointments :  other 
dancers  adopted  her  modest  garments.  So  great  was  Taglioni 
now,  indeed,  that  she  set  the  other  fashion  as  well.  A  Leg- 
horn hat,  sent  with  brim  turned  back  lest  it  should  be  crushed  in 
the  bandbox,  did  not  strike  her  as  having  anything  singular  about 
it :  she  wore  it  so  at  the  Opera.  Next  day  the  milliner  came, 
gasping.  "  Madame  Taglioni,  what  have  you  done  !  I  sent  the 
brim  turned  back  for  fear  of  crushing.  .  .  .  My  reputation  is 
ruined.  You  have  worn  it  like  that ! "  "I  thought  it  was  a  new 
fashion,"  said  the  culprit,  blushing — and  so  it  was,  the  next  week. 
That  represents  the  fine  flower  of  many  a  feminine  ambition : 


258  MARIE   TAGLIONI 

to  set  the  fashion.  Perhaps  she  counted  it  among  her  other 
triumphs — the  showers  of  bouquets  (she  danced  one  ballet  amid 
a  rain  of  flowers  ! ),  the  horses  taken  out  of  her  carriage,  the 
twenty-five  recalls  one  night  at  Vienna,  the  still  more  striking 
experience  of  being  obliged  to  dance  her  Gitana  dance  twice  over 
on  the  night  she  produced  it  in  Paris.  The  day  after  this  glory, 
the  theatre  was  closed  :  "  they  were  repairing  the  auditorium  !  " 
.  .  .  Auber  wrote  the  music  for  La  Gitana  :  Auber  who  "  doted 
on  the  ballet,  as  the  ballet  doted  on  him." 

Taglioni's  only  rival  was  Fanny  Elssler.  This  Gitana  dance 
was  a  blow  levelled  directly  at  her.  Elssler's  great  triumph  had 
been  m  La  Cachucha ;  but  "  Taglioni's  dance,"  said  a  malicious 
French  paper,  "  is  La  Cachucha,  transported  into  the  region  of 
poetry."  In  this  way  the  journalists  fomented  the  duel.  "  She 
has  taken  your  Cachucha,  Elssler — your  one  poor  triumph  !  All 
you  can  do  now  is  to  take  her  Sylphide."  Elssler,  a  handsome 
big  girl,  was  inconceivable  as  a  Sylph.  Her  province  was  assuredly 
not  the  superterrestrial.  She  had  made  her  fame  chiefly  by  a 
much-talked-of  "  movement  of  the  hips ",  and  by  des  ceillades 
agagantes,  "  Taglioni  makes  no  ceillades "  (so  the  journalists 
broke  out  again  in  a  frenzy  of  egging  them  on),  "  she  intoxicates 
by  force  of  talent  alone."  In  La  Gitana^  she  was  more  daring 
than  ever  before— so  poor  Elssler  had  had  some  influence  ! — "  but 
always  with  reticence,  with  taste."  .  .  .  Elssler  retired  to  New 
York,  where,  one  is  rather  glad  to  find,  she  was  adored,  as  the 
Sylph  was  in  Paris  and  Vienna — and  Bordeaux.  For  Bordeaux, 
at  that  time,  was  the  arbiter  for  dancers.  "  Dancing  was  almost 
a  religious  work  there."  Bordeaux  was  satisfied — so  all  was 
well. 

Her  London  dSut  was  in  1828,  at  the  King's  Theatre. 
Lablache  and  Malibran  were  singing  at  the  Opera  that  night. 
Again,  in  1835,  she  appeared  after  Lucrezia  Borgia — the  night 
of  Mario's  dibilt^  the  night  when  Grisi,  as  Lucrezia,  "  put  on  the 
malign  and  fascinating  beauty  of  a  sorceress."  She  danced  once 
in  the  same  piece  with  Grisi!  (1835.)  It  was  La  prova  d'un' 
Opera  seria^  a  comic  piece  where  Grisi  had  to  pretend  to  sing 
badly.  She  sang — oh,  so  divinely  badly!  Lablache  acted 
incomparably;  Taglioni,   representing  the  corps  de  ballet^  was 


MARIE  TAGLIONI  259 

"more  like  thistledown  than  ever."  .  .  .  Tis  like  the  Arabian 
Nights  :  we  do  not  quite  believe  in  it.  People  cannot  have  had 
such  evenings  at  the  Opera.  It  was  all  written  to  make  posterity 
unhappy  and  discontented.  Even  the  children  are  supposed  to 
have  seen  these  wonders. 

"  Taglioni  cannot  fly,  Papa  :  only  birds  can  fly,"  says  one 
precocious. 

"  Come  and  see  for  yourself,"  says  Papa.  And  the  lucky 
little  wretch  is  taken  to  the  Opera. 

"  Well .? " 

"  Yes — I  must  confess,  Taglioni  does  fly  a  little."  She  used  to 
dream  that  she  could  fly,  at  any  rate — for  half-a-second,  "  would 
have  the  sensation  of  hanging  in  the  air  "...  then,  would  wake 
up,  unhappy :  it  wasn't  true  !  So  now  we  know  the  Dreams  of 
a  Sylph. 


They  were  so  nearly  realised  that  we  almost  forget,  as  her 
adorers  did,  that  Taglioni  was  a  woman.  "  The  difficulty,  with 
her,  seems  to  be  to  stay  on  the  ground  at  all."  She  came  to  the 
ground,  at  any  rate — and  badly,  when  she  married,  in  1832, 
Count  Gilbert  des  Voisins,  the  only  man  with  whom  her  name  is 
connected.  He  had  been  her  lover ;  but  the  whole  affair  is 
puzzling,  for  he  left  her  almost  on  the  morrow  of  their  marriage. 
Albert  Vandam,  in  his  Englishman  in  PariSy  expresses  himself 
somewhat  brutally  on  this  enigmatic  union.  "  Count  des  Voisins 
wronged  her  cruelly.  He  conceived  himself  bound  to  make 
reparation  for  error — but  what  possessed  him  to  commit  the 
error!"  For  Vandam  met  her  in  1844,  and  was  not  attracted. 
He  had  seen  her  dance  in  1840,  and  had  been  disappointed  ;  now 
in  1844,  it  was  still  worse.  She  had  deteriorated  in  her  art. 
Alfred  de  Musset  gracefully  put  public  opinion  into  an 
epigram  :  — 

*'  Ne  courez  pas  apr^s  votre  ombre, 
Et  t^chez  de  nous  la  laisser."  .  .  . 

But  Vandam's  disappointment  with  her  as  a  dancer  was 
nothing  to  his  disappointment  with  her  as  a  woman.     "  She  was 


260  MARIE   TAGLIONI 

very  unamiable,"  he  curtly  says — and  yet  Vandam  had  a  better 
reception  than  most  men  had.  Taglioni  hated  all  males  of 
Latin  race  ;  to  Russians,  English,  Viennese,  she  would  thaw  a 
little,  to  Italians,  Spaniards,  Frenchmen  above  all,  she  was  a 
sharply-pointed  icicle.  One  knows  not  why:  perhaps  des 
Voisins  was  responsible.  He  was  plainly  an  unpleasant  person. 
Arsene  Houssaye  tells  of  a  dinner  at  the  Due  de  Morny's  where 
Taglioni  and  des  Voisins  met,  twenty  years  after  their  marriage. 
The  Count  arrived  late  :  they  were  already  at  table.  Taglioni, 
who  knew  all  European  languages,  was  perhaps  obtrusively  dis- 
playing her  accomplishment.  Whatever  she  was  doing,  it  led 
des  Voisins  to  inquire  of  his  neighbour,  "Who  is  that  she- 
professor  on  Morny's  right .-' "  "  But  that  is  your  wife,"  replied 
the  other,  too  astonished  to  be  tactful.  Des  Voisins  considered 
her — finally  remarked,  "  After  all,  it  is  quite  possible  ! "  Taglioni 
had  recognised  him  more  quickly,  and  had  reproved  Morny  for 
asking  her  to  dine  in  such  bad  company.  The  climax  came 
when,  after  dinner,  des  Voisins  asked  to  be  introduced.  She 
was  quite  equal  to  the  impertinence.  "  I  think.  Monsieur,  that  I 
had  the  honour  of  being  presented  to  you  in  1832  " — the  year  of 
their  marriage! — and  with  that,  turned  her  back.  .  .  .  Morny's 
dinners  must  often  have  had  their  bad  quarters-of-an-hour,  one 
gathers — he  seems  to  have  been  rather  too  adventurous  a  host. 

She  had  one  daughter  and  one  son.  The  daughter  became 
the  Princesse  Mathilde  Troubetzkoy ;  the  son  joined  the  French 
Army,  but  afterwards  returned  to  civil  life  and  married  a  rich 
Englishwoman.  By  1844,  the  great  career  was  plainly  drawing 
to  an  end;  but  we  still  hear  of  her  in  London.  In  1845,  she 
danced  in  the  famous  Pas  de  Qitatre  with  Cerito,  Carlotta  Grisi, 
and  Grahn ;  in  1847,  came  the  Jenny  Lind  fever.  Taglioni 
retired  from  the  Opera  "  rather  than  brook  a  rival " — the  phrase 
gives  one  an  odd  impression  of  Jenny  Lind  ! — saying  **  Z«  danse 
est  comme  la  Turqtiie,  Men  malade"  Her  terms  had  been 
enormous.  Alfred  Bunn,  in  1836,  engaged  her  to  appear 
"  alternately  with  Malibran  " — each  taking  three  nights  a  week. 
He  paid  her  ;^ioo  a  night  for  herself;  £600  to  her  father  as 
ballet-master  during  her  visit ;  ;^900  to  her  brother  and  sister-in- 
law   to   dance   with   her,  besides   two   benefits   guaranteed   for 


MARIE   TAGLIONI  261 

;^I000,  and  half-a-benefit  guaranteed  for  ;^200  for  the  brother — 
£6000  in  all.  It  seemed,  despite  the  expense,  a  promising 
speculation  for  Bunn  ;  he  returned  to  London — having  arranged 
all  this  in  Paris — well-satisfied.  Unfortunate  man !  Within  a 
few  days,  he  heard  of  the  death  of  Malibran !  (September 
23,  1836.) 

After  her  retirement,  Taglioni  went  at  first  to  Italy,  spending 
her  leisure  "between  her  villa  on  the  Lake  of  Como  and  her 
palace  at  Venice."  Those  words  bring  back  the  magic  which,  as 
a  dancer,  played  through  her  life.  As  a  woman,  Taglioni  fails 
entirely ;  nothing  attracts,  nothing  touches,  us.  The  more  we 
know,  the  less  we  like.  .  .  .  But  regard  her  merely  as  dancer, 
and  her  life  shimmers  for  us  like  the  rose-coloured  scarves  in  the 
ballet  where  she  figured  Venus  rising  from  the  sea.  She  had  an 
adventure  even — a  real,  real  adventure,  with  a  picturesque 
Russian  highwayman  ...  oh,  dream  of  all  youth  come  true  ! 
And  his  name  was  Trischka.  He  was  the  terror  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood ;  she  was  advised  to  take  precautions.  She  took  none, 
and  her  carriage  was  stopped  on  the  snowy  road.  "  Madame,  I 
ask  only  for  a  dance."  "  On  this  road  "i "  "  You  have  rugs, 
cloths,  in  your  carriage."  They  were  spread  upon  the  rough, 
snow-furrowed  road  ;  the  moon  and  Trischka  were  the  audience 
— and  Taglioni  danced  for  a  quarter-of-an-hour.  Trischka  fell 
under  the  spell :  "  No  money,  no  jewels — only  the  rugs  !  I  shall 
never  part  with  them."  And  gathering  them  reverentially  over 
his  arm,  he  mounted,  waved  his  hat,  and  watched  them  drive 
away  into  the  distance — the  very  Brigand  of  Romance  ! 

Let  us  forget  that  she  spent  her  last  days  in  London  as  a 
"  teacher  of  deportment,"  poor  and  old :  a  white-haired  woman, 
"  escorting  a  bevy  of  schoolgirls  in  Hyde  Park,  or  teaching  court- 
curtseys  to  the  proud  daughters  of  the  gentry."  Let  us  forget 
that  she  died  at  Marseilles  in  1884,  "very  old  and  very  poor." 
.  .  .  What  shall  we  remember.?  Shall  we  remember  Emma 
Livry  (of  whom  Gautier  wrote),  that  exquisite  virginal  creature, 
who  created  but  one  part  in  a  ballet — L^  Papillon,  composed  and 
arranged  by  Taglioni — and  that  part,  the  Butterfly  herself.  "  She 
could  actually  imitate  the  fantastic  and  exquisite  motion  " — and 
like  the  butterfly,  she  lived  but  a  day.     At  twenty-one,  Emma 


262  MARIE  TAGLIONI 

Livry  died,  after  long  suffering,  in  the  Paris  which  had  taken  her 
to  its  capricious  heart.  "  Paris  extraordinarily  loved  her  " — and 
so  half  Paris  saw  the  strange  and  beautiful  incident  at  her 
funeral,  of  two  white  butterflies  which  hovered  over  her  coffin  all 
the  way.  Taglioni  was  at  that  funeral,  weeping.  For  Emma 
Livry,  she  felt  what  perhaps  she  had  never  felt  before — a  human 
love.  Let  us  remember  her  so :  a  woman,  yes !  but  still  more, 
even  then,  a  dancer.  The  Ballet  was  the  great  passion  of  her 
life :  Emma  Livry  was  her  daughter  in  it.  .  .  .  It  was  more  real 
to  her  than  the  other  motherhood.  "  Taglioni  was  not  a  woman," 
so  they  said  of  her :  "  she  was  a  magic  spell." 


JENNY    LIND 

1820-1887 

SHALL  we  confess  that  Jenny  Lind  does  not  attract  us  ?  It 
is  a  serious  thing  to  confess — a  betrayal  of  our  own 
worldliness,  triviality,  vulgarity,  all  sorts  of  "  'nesses  "  and 
"'ties."  The  merit  of  truthfulness  is  the  only  merit  we  have 
left.  ...  If  we  could  but  find  a  memoir  of  her  in  which  she  was 
allowed  to  reveal  herself,  to  show  us  her  humanity,  all  might  yet 
be  well — but  it  were  to  ask  for  the  moon.  The  flood  of  senti- 
ment which  she  let  loose — in  the  German  and  Scandinavian 
countries,  especially — is  beyond  belief,  though  we  are  forced  to 
believe  :  almost  beyond  endurance,  though  we  are  forced  to 
endure.  One  of  the  great  singers  of  the  world,  and,  beyond 
question,  one  of  its  noble  women,  she  might  well  have  been 
suffered  to  speak  for  herself,  as  it  were  ;  to  show  her  faults  (we 
hope  she  had  some),  to  bend  under  her  weaknesses,  descending 
to  our  common  level  of  humanity.  .  .  .  But  no !  Panegyric, 
panegyric — hysterical  ravings  about  her  heroism  because  she 
undertook  the  life  for  which  she  was  plainly  born,  and  which  in  the 
beginning,  at  any  rate,  she  ardently  desired  ;  still  more  hysterical 
ravings  because  she  gave  it  up ;  transcendental  eulogy  of  her 
**  modesty,"  her  "diffidence,"  her  "sacrifices  to  Art"  ;  utterly  un- 
measured praise  of  her  singing  and  her  acting,  fine  as  both  must 
certainly  have  been  ...  all  this  we  must  wade  through,  if  we 
desire  to  know  of  Jenny  Lind — and  at  the  end,  instead  of  helping, 
us,  it  baffles  us. 

The  outstanding  fact  of  her  life — the  fact  which  makes  her 
unique  in  musical  history — is  her  abandonment  of  the  Opera  at 
the  height  of  a  dizzying  fame.  This  striking  manifestation  of 
character  has  received  its  full  meed  of  praise :   praise,  indeed 

263 


264  JENNY  LIND 

is  a  feeble  term  for  the  sort  of  thing  which  is  poured  out  in 
such  pages  as  Canon  Scott  Holland's,  for  example — and  praise, 
so  far  as  we  can  see,  is  not  called  for  at  all.  Nothing  is  here  for 
praise  or  blame.  She  simply  followed  her  own  impulse — which 
had  altered  with  the  years  ;  for  in  her  early  life,  she  spoke  and 
wrote  enthusiastically  of  the  career  of  a  Queen  of  Opera.  The 
individual  opinion  of  her  clerical  biographer  tends  to  exalt  her 
act  into  a  deed  of  heroic  sacrifice  ;  but  it  is  no  sacrifice  to  abandon 
what  has  ceased  to  make  us  happy.  Strange,  indeed,  it  may  well 
appear  that  such  glory  and  such  affection  as  went  with  the  glory, 
should  fail  to  bring  felicity  to  any  ardent  heart.  They  did  so 
fail,  however — and  therefore,  how  is  Jenny  Lind  a  saint,  a  heroine, 
a  martyr }  Only  if  they  had  not  failed,  could  those  titles  be 
hers. 

Unregenerate  that  we  are,  we  feel  that  in  this  unresponsiveness 
to  the  special  joy  lies  the  secret  of  her  want  of  magnetism  for  us. 
Troubles,  many  and  difficult  to  bear,  and  petty  and  horrible 
intrigues,  and  fatigues,  and  a  certain  isolation,  belong  to  the 
career  of  an  opera-singer,  in  an  exaggerated  degree,  no  doubt. 
But  to  what  great  public  career  do  they  not  belong }  and  we 
honour  those  who  carry  the  flag  to  the  end  of  the  battle.  "  One 
crowded  hour  "...  the  old  lines  still  kindle  the  heart ! 

It  will  be  said  that  Jenny  Lind  did  not  resign  the  crowded 
hours :  that  her  most  successful  period  was  perhaps  the  American 
Concert-tours  under  Barnum's  management  and  her  own — 
especially  under  her  own,  for  she  amassed  over  three  millions  in 
less  than  a  year !  The  argument  leaves  us  unmoved.  By 
several  degrees  less,  then,  is  she  a  heroine  and  a  saint,  we 
answer.  Never  was  advertisement  more  clamant,  never  had 
Barnum  a  bigger  boom  ("  it  almost  beat  Tom  Thumb  ! "  he 
said  sadly,  after  she  had  thrown  him  over),  never  did  even 
America  feast  its  eyes  on  such  gigantic  letters  as  those  in  which 
JENNY  LIND  was  painted  on  her  travelling-piano.  .  .  .  Let 
us  unsaint  her,  good-naturedly :  very  human  was  our  Jenny  ! 

Her  nature  was  essentially  a  simple,  a  domestic  one,  and  a 
deeply  religious  one  besides.  "  She  regarded  her  great  gift  as  a 
gift  from  God."  But  in  that  she  was  not  unique,  though  one 
would   suppose   that   she  was,  to  read   Canon  Scott   Holland's 


JENNY  LIND  ^5 

Memoir.  Catalani  had  felt  the  same,  in  the  same  way :  "  I  do 
like  to  sing  to  my  God  ! "  she  exclaimed  after  an  oratorio,  and 
she  never  went  on  the  stage  without  a  preliminary  prayer. 
Others,  expressing  the  feeling  differently,  gloried  in  the  good 
they  could  do,  and  did  as  much  as  Jenny  Lind.  Malibran's 
generosity — the  most  unostentatious  of  all — was  endless,  but 
Malibran,  with  her  odd,  warm,  personal  nature,  gave  nearly  always 
to  private  people ;  Persiani  was  known  as  /a  dame  de  diariti ; 
Catalani,  again,  did  exquisite  deeds  of  public  and  private  charity  ; 
Grisi  too,  and  Rubini,  and  Dejazet  .  .  .  Generosity  may  indeed 
be  called  the  foible  of  singers  !  And  the  best  feeling  we  have 
about  Jenny  Lind  is  that  she  would  have  been  the  first  to 
acknowledge  and  rejoice  in  all  this.  Instead  of  desiring 
the  wild  eulogy  of  her  biographers,  she  would,  we  think,  have 
resented  it. 

Now  and  again,  through  the  welter  of  sentiment,  we  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  real  woman.  Not  an  "  interesting  "  woman,  but  a 
very  naive  and  natural  one.  It  is  chiefly — indeed  only — in  her 
nervous,  by  turns  abnormally  diffident  and  abnormally  self- 
confident,  letters  that  we  find  herself:  as,  for  instance,  that 
written  during  her  pupilage  in  Paris,  where  she  compares  herself 
favourably  as  an  actress  with  Rachel — and  then  hastens  to  add 
that  she  would  never  dream  of  doing  such  a  thing :  "  Poor  me  !  '* 
Now  there  we  get  a  flash-light  on  Jenny  Lind.  Outwardly 
diffident  and  sincerely  diffident,  she  no  doubt  was  ;  but  psycho- 
logists know  well  how  closely  diffidence  is  related  to  vanity — if  it 
is  not,  indeed,  its  very  outcome.  "  Nobody  acts  as  I  act " — and 
the  truth  was  that  apart  from  her  fresh  impulsive  personality, 
Jenny  Lind,  so  far  from  being  a  dramatic  artist  whom  "  nobody 
acted  like,"  was,  according  to  many  critics,  markedly  conventional 
in  her  acting. 

Thus  directly  we  take  her  own  unvarnished  word  for  it,  we 
begin  to  find  her  refreshingly  human!  Again.  In  1838  it  was 
that  her  Great  Hour  dawned.  On  March  7th  of  that  year,  she 
appeared  in  the  part  of  Agatha  in  Der  Freischiitz  at  Stockholm. 
"  I  got  up  that  morning  one  creature,"  she  used  to  say  ;  "  I  went 
to  bed  another  one  ! "  .  .  .  "  And,  all  through  her  life,"  writes 
Canon  Scott  Holland  with  his  prodigality  of  sentiment,  "  she  kept 


^66  JENNY  LIND 

the  7th  of  March  with  a  religious  solemnity ;  she  would  ask  to 
have  herself  remembered  on  it  with  prayers  ;  she  treated  it  as  a 
second  birthday."  Well !  In  1842,  we  find  her,  quaintly  writing 
home  from  Paris  :  "  You  know,  to-day  four  years  ago,  I  made  my 
dedtU  in  Der  Freischiltz^ — no  !  five  years  ago,  I  mean  !  No  !  it  is 
four,  I  think.  .  .  .  Well,  yes !  I  do  not  know  !  Anyhow,  it  was 
the  7th  of  March." 

How  natural  and  amusing  that  is,  how  much  more  endearing 
than  the  "  solemn  celebration  " — yet  on  that  bright,  girlish  letter, 
Canon  Scott  Holland  has  no  panegyric  to  intone.  In  all  her 
letters,  we  find  the  same  ingenuous  note.  They  bristle  with 
exclamation-points,  like  that  one ;  they  abound  in  "  Ah ! "  and 
"  Oh !  "  and  "  Well,  yes,"  and  occasionally  comes  an  irrelevant 
"  God  help  " — somebody !  "  She  is  a  nice  kind  girl,  God  help 
her  " — for  instance.  .  .  .  The  peasant-girl,  the  country-girl,  sounds 
in  that  homely  exclamation — even  as  we  hear  in  Ireland  the 
"  God  bless  him "  tagged  to  any  praise — and  Jenny  Lind 
preserved  all  her  life  the  fresh  savour  of  the  country.  "She 
always  looked  as  if  she  had  come  from  the  country" — an 
incongruous  aspect  for  a  great  opera-singer ;  but  no  doubt  it  was 
more  a  question  of  atmosphere  than  of  aspect,  just  as  primroses 
in  London  bring  the  woods  into  our  hearts.  .  .  .  Already,  reading 
only  her  letters,  covering  the  rest  of  the  sugary  pages  with  our 
hand,  we  begin  to  like  her  better ! 


Born  at  Stockholm,  in  1820,  Jenny  Lind  was  an  infant  prodigy. 
At  three,  her  grandmother  found  her  picking  out  the  music  of  a 
military  fanfare  upon  the  piano — she,  who  was  to  triumph  in  the 
Datighter  of  the  Regiment !  "  Mark  the  predestination  "  ;  and  the 
old  lady  marked  it,  for  she  made  the  speech  which  the  grand- 
mothers of  famous  folk  seem  born  to  make :  "  Rememher  my 
words^  etcetera."  Thus  from  the  earliest  moment  of  her  con- 
scious life,  Jenny  Lind  never  wanted  for  recognition.  At  nine, 
she  used  to  sit  in  the  window  and  sing  to  her  cat,  "  with  its  blue 
ribbon  round  its  neck " ;  and  Mile.  Lundberg,  a  dancer  at  the 
Royal  Theatre,  was  told  by  her  maid  of  the  wondrous  voice.  "  I 
never  heard  such  beautiful  singing."   Lundberg  was  interested,  she 


t 


JENNY  LIND  267 

had  Jenny  brought  to  her — and  at  once  declared  that  she  had  genius 
and  must  be  educated  for  the  stage.  She  arranged  that  Croelius, 
the  Singing-Master  at  the  Royal  Theatre,  should  hear  her.  Croelius 
heard  her,  and  wept.  He  took  her  to  Count  Puke,  the  Intendant 
of  the  Theatre.  "  How  old  is  she  ? "  demanded  the  Count.  "  Nine," 
said  Croelius.  "But  this  is  not  a  cric/iel  It  is  His  Majesty's 
Theatre !  "  Puke  was  however  prevailed  upon  to  hear  the  "  small, 
ugly,  broad-nosed,  shy  girl "  (as  she  described  herself  at  that 
time  in  later  years) — and  Puke  also  was  ''  moved  to  tears."  Well, 
well !  Tears  were  wonderfully  easily  come  by  in  those  days,  it 
would  seem  ;  but  something  more  practical  was  come  by  also,  and 
this  was  Jenny's  adoption  by  the  Royal  Theatre,  to  be  taught  to 
sing  and  be  educated  and  brought  up  in  the  School  of  Pupils 
attached  to  it.  .  .  .  Theater-elev  :  that  was  what  she  was.  She 
had  food,  clothes,  and  lodging  at  the  Theatre's  expense,  and  was 
taught  singing,  elocution,  and  dancing,  besides  the  ordinary 
things :  "  French,  religion,  the  piano."  .  .  .  The  dancing  served 
her  well  in  later  years,  for  she  moved  exquisitely,  and  her  posture 
before  and  while  she  sang  was  one  of  her  noted  graces. 

Funny  little  girl !  At  ten,  an  infant  prodigy  of  actings  not  of 
singing  ;  at  fourteen,  a  revolting  daughter — which,  indeed,  she 
remained  all  her  life.  At  fourteen,  she  ran  away  from  home  (for 
the  Theatre  had  boarded  her  with  her  parents)  and  took  refuge  in 
the  Opera-House  itself !  Some  upper  rooms  there  were  always 
occupied  by  the  pupils,  so  the  Directors  acquiesced ;  but  Fru 
Lind  insisted  on  her  maternal  and  her  business-rights  :  there  was 
a  contract  and  the  contract  must  be  kept !  Jenny  was  sent  back 
in  1836.  But  later  on,  she  ran  away  again,  and  this  time  did  not 
return.  ...  In  1838,  as  we  have  seen,  her  Hour  came,  with  her 
debM  at  the  Theatre  as  Agatha,  in  Der  Freischiltz,  The  day  was 
one  horror.  She  suffered  all  her  life  from  overwhelming  nervous- 
ness ;  in  one  of  her  later  letters,  when  she  was  an  established  diva, 
we  read,  "  This  terrible  nervousness  destroys  everything  for  me." 
But  fortunately,  with  the  actual  moment,  the  obsession  would 
leave  her.  It  was  during  the  day  that  she  was  beset,  that  she 
would  weep,  tremble,  agonisedly  practise,  d  demi-voix,  her  chosen 
effects.  .  .  .  The  success,  on  that  famous  Seventh  of  March,  was 
beyond  all  question  :  "  she  had  found  her  power."     Agatha  was 


268  JENNY  LIND 

always  one  of  her  great  parts ;  the  scena  known  in  England  as 
"  Softly  Sighs  "  displayed  the  wonderful  soprano  to  full  advantage. 
"It  seemed  to  float  upwards  like  a  cloud  of  incense,"  said  a  Berlin 
critic  when  she  sang  Agatha  there  in  1845.  But  between  the 
d^bilt  at  Stockholm  in  1838,  and  the  Berlin  glories  of  five  and  six 
years  later,  there  lay  a  tract  of  desolate  difficult  country.  She 
had  Sweden  at  her  feet;  but  Sweden  has  never  awarded  the 
crowns  in  Art:  "Stockholm  was  not,  and  never  had  been,  a 
centre  of  artistic  progress,  even  of  the  second  order."  Every 
honour  that  Sweden — "  my  beloved  Sweden !  " —  could  shower 
had  been  showered  on  her :  Academic  and  Court  appointments, 
presentations,  processions,  serenades,  plenty  of  the  never-failing 
"  tears "  ;  and  yet,  clinging  and  ever-homesick  patriot  though 
she  was,  Jenny  Lind  was  not  satisfied.  Her  ambition  as  an 
artist  felt  its  own  broken  wings.  She  could  not  reach  to  her 
ideal  ;  she  did  not  know  how.  Excellent  workaday  teaching  she 
had  had,  from  Croelius  and  from  Berg,  but  the  liberator  of  her 
voice  had  not  yet  appeared.  The  voice  had  notable  faults  ;  its 
middle  notes  were  thin  and  veiled,  and  her  breathing  was  badly 
managed.  There  were  many  things  that  she  could  not  do  at  all ; 
some  that  she  did  "  provincially."  Perhaps  it  was  the  advent  of 
a  famous  baritone  of  the  Italian  School,  Belletti — then  singing 
with  her  at  the  Royal  Theatre — which  opened  her  eyes  ;  for  "  he 
showed  her,  vividly,  what  singing  in  the  great  Italian  manner 
really  meant "  ;  and  when  she  asked  where  she  too  might  learn  to 
sing  like  that,  he  answered,  as  he  could  not  but  answer:  "At 
Paris,  under  Garcia  ! " 

And  so  to  Paris,  in  1841  (raising  the  funds  by  a  tour  of  pro- 
vincial concert-singing),  she  went.  All  the  world  knows  the  story 
of  Garcia's  reception.  How  she  sang,  and  broke  down,  and  how 
he  pityingly  murmured,  "  Mademoiselle,  you  have  no  voice  left" 
.  .  .  She  told  Mendelssohn  in  after-years  that  the  anguish  of  that 
moment  exceeded  all  that  she  had  ever  suffered  in  her  whole  life. 
But  she  showed  great  courage.  She  lifted  her  bowed  head,  and 
asked  "  What  am  I  to  do  } "  Garcia,  still  pitiful — this  was 
Malibran's  brother,  Manuel  Garcia,  not  of  course  the  terrible 
brutal  father — said  that  if  she  would  consent  not  to  sing,  and 
scarcely  to  speak,  for  six  weeks,  she  might  come  to  him  again  at 


Berhtt  Photographic  Co. 

JENNY   LIND 

FROM   THE    PICTURE    IJY    EDUARD   MAGNUS   IN   THE  NATIONAL   GALLERY,    BERLIN 


JENNY  LIND  269 

the  end  of  that  time.     "  I  will  see  whether  anything  can  be  done 
for  you." 


Well,  London  in  1847  knew  what  had  been  done!  .  .  .  This 
was  the  method  of  Garcia,  as  described  in  a  letter  from  herself: 
"  I  have  already  had  five  lessons.  I  have  to  begin  again  from  the 
beginning ;  to  sing  scales,  up  and  down,  slowly  and  with  great 
care ;  to  practise  the  shake — awfully  slowly ;  and  to  try  to  get 
rid  of  the  hoarseness,  if  possible.  Moreover  he  is  very  particular 
about  the  breathing."  And  then,  on  the  historic  Seventh  of 
March,  in  1842  :  "  Garcia  is  satisfied  with  me^ 

All  our  admiration  goes  out  to  her  in  this  episode.  Here 
are  pluck,  endurance,  modesty  indeed — and  to  add  the  spice, 
the  smile,  here  is  too  the  apparently  incongruous  conceit,  for  do 
but  read :  "  My  ideal  was  and  is  so  high  that  I  could  find  no 
mortal  who  could  in  the  least  degree  satisfy  my  demands.  There- 
fore I  sing  after  no  one's  method — only,  as  far  as  I  am  able, 
after  that  of  the  birds ;  for  their  Master  was  the  only  one  who 
came  up  to  my  demands  for  truth,  clearness,  and  expression." 
A  sense  of  humour  our  Jenny  plainly  did  not  possess  !  Her 
type  forbade  it.  She  was  the  "  Vierge  du  Nord,"  the  "  Pretresse 
de  Diane  "  ;  she  was  conscientious,  strenuous,  serious — all  the 
words  ending  in  "  'ous."  Look  at  the  earnest  countenance  in 
the  picture  by  Magnus,  painted  when  she  was  twenty-six.  The 
deep-set  clear  frank  eyes  have  no  secrets  from  us  ;  the  large  firm 
mouth  has  little  mobility— smiles  did  not  play  round  eyes  or 
mouth  too  easily,  the  sparkle  of  wit,  of  humour,  seldom  puzzled 
listener  or  beholder.  A  stubborn  little  face  it  is,  though  :  such  a 
"  rocky  ",  characteristic  nose  !  The  nose  was  clearly  that  of  one 
who  would  have  her  way,  and,  let  clergymen  ensaint  her  as  a 
martyr  if  they  will,  the  fact  remains  that  Jenny  Lind  did  pretty 
well  what  she  liked  all  her  life  through.  She  liked  strenuous 
things  at  one  time — and  did  them,  liked  less  strenuous  things 
at  another — and  did  them  too.  .  .  .  Further,  the  pose  of  the  arms 
and  hands  is  full  of  significance.  The  attitude  of  the  picture  was 
characteristic,  we  are  told — and  we  believe  it.  There  again  is  will ; 
and  there,  too,  is  a  queer  kind  of  promise  of  "  conscientiousness," 


270  JENNY   LIND 

a  lack  of  flexibility,  of  movement,  of  diversity.  A  little  heavily 
they  lie,  do  they  not  ?  a  little  .  .  .  Teutonically  ?  There  exists 
a  picture  of  Malibran,  leaning  her  head  on  one  weary  arm — 
the  other  flung  into  her  lap.  .  .  .  All  the  infinite  universe  of 
difference  between  the  two  women  is  written  there  :  the  excellence 
of  the  one,  the  exquisiteness  of  the  other !  "  Cxur  d'ange  et  de 
lion  /  "  .  .  .  Such  wildfire  phrases  never  sounded  for  Jenny  Lind  : 
the  phrases  she  inspired  were  "  pretty " — they  charmed,  they 
did  not  kindle,  the  imagination. 

But  then  the  wildfire  Latins  never  heard  her.  Strange !  that 
definite  limitation  of  her  glory  to  Northern  Europe.  Plainly  all 
magnetism  between  her  and  the  Latin  races  was  wanting.  In 
Paris  she  never  sang,  never  would  sing — was  she  afraid  }  She 
was  always  "  afraid,"  as  we  know,  wherever  she  sang  ;  but  at 
least  the  great  Northern  capitals  were  regarded  merely  as  alarm- 
ing friends — not  as  bogies !  More  singular  still,  though,  is  the 
fact  that  Garcia,  having  done  all  he  had  done,  was  never  enthusi- 
astic about  her.  Always  he  preferred  a  fellow-pupil,  Henrietta 
Nissen  (afterwards  Mme.  Siegfried  Salomon),  who  assuredly 
never  made  a  tithe  of  the  sensation  which  Jenny  Lind  made. 
There  must  have  been  something  more  than  want  of  magnetism 
— there  must  have  been  some  positive  antagonism  between  her 
and  the  French,  Italians,  Spaniards.  We  hear  of  no  adoration 
from  any  member  of  any  of  these  races,  and,  though  she  never 
sang  in  their  countries,  many  such  must  have  heard  and  met  her 
in  the  countries  where  she  did  sing.  Nor  was  this  a  mere  question 
of  nationality — for  think  of  Schroeder-Devrient !  The  odd  fact 
remains,  and  impoverishes  her  history  ;  for  as  Paris  is  the  queen 
of  taste,  so  are  Frenchmen  the  kings  of  biography.  A  memoir, 
even  a  slight  study,  of  Jenny  Lind  by  a  Frenchman  would  not 
have  left  us  where  we  are  to-day  :  surfeited,  yet  utterly  unsatisfied, 
questioners ! 


When  the  pupilage  was  over,  we  find  her  writing  :  "  I  am 
longing  for  home  ;  /  am  longing  for  my  theatre.  Oh,  to  pour 
out  my  feelings  in  a  beautiful  part !  Until  I  stand  there  again, 
I  shall  not  know  myself  as  I  really 'am.     This  has  been  my  joy. 


JENNY  LIND  271 

my  pride,  my  glory !  "  And  now  how  much  more,  for  the  voice 
was  liberated  !  No  need  to  describe  it — we  have  all  known  of  that 
marvellous  soprano  from  our  cradles.  Almost  we  seem  to  have 
heard  it,  ringing  in  "  Softly  Sighs,"  trilling  in  "  Ah,  non  giunge  !  " 
(her  Amina  in  La  Sonnambula  was  her  greatest  part)  soaring  in 
the  Elijah  music  on  the  wonderful  F  sharp,  that  most  poignarit, 
exquisite,  of  treble  notes,  and  in  her  voice  so  supremely  lovely 
that  Mendelssohn  had  it  in  his  longing  ears  when  he  wrote  the 
brilliant  opening  phrases  in  "  Hear  ye,  Israel."  ...  Or  again,  in 
her  own  Swedish  songs — "  veritable  snow-flowers,"  "  immaculate 
purity  of  crystal  sounds  !  " 

All  was  ready  in  1842,  and  of  the  great  cities  Berlin  heard 
her  first,  in  1844.  It  was  Meyerbeer  who  brought  her  there. 
He  had  heard  of  her  in  Paris,  and  asked  the  Director  of  the 
Academie  Royale  de  Musique  to  let  him  hear,  at  a  private 
performance  on  its  stage,  "  a  young  person  "  of  whom  he  had  had 
a  very  good  account.  "  It  is  not  for  you,"  he  added  to  the 
Director ;  "  the  voice  is  described  as  pretty,  but  too  weak  for 
the  Grand  Opera.  I  want  to  see  whether  I  can  make  use  of  it 
for  Berlin."  Leon  Fillet  gave  all  facilities,  and  to  a  little  party 
of  six  or  eight  persons  on  Saturday,  July  23,  1842,  Jenny  Lind 
sang  for  the  first  and  last  time  in  the  great  French  House.  "  On 
the  next  day,"  wrote  Fillet,  "  I  asked  Meyerbeer  what  he  had 
thought  of  the  singer.  He  had  said — I  was  told — that  she  was 
not  without  talent,  but  had  still  much  to  accomplish  .  .  .  and,  in 
fact,  he  thought  so  little  of  her  for  the  Opera  that  he  did  not 
even  speak  to  me  about  her."  .  .  .  Her  friend,  Herr  Lindblad, 
said  that  Jenny  had  not  sung  nearly  so  well  as  she  could.  What 
Meyerbeer  said  to  Lindblad  was  that  hers  was  a  "  chaste  pure 
voice,  full  of  grace  and  virginality."  Somehow,  one  feels  that 
Meyerbeer  might  have  said  more,  that  he  had  felt  some  dis- 
appointment ?  Is  it  too  bold  to  say  that  we  think  there  was  disap- 
pointment all  round — that  if  Meyerbeer  A^^said  more.  ...  It  was 
unofficial — true !  There  were  no  lights  and  only  a  pianoforte 
accompaniment ;  and  yet,  and  yet — !  Unofficial "  trials  "  had  issued 
differently,  before  then.  It  was  not  a  debilt^  so  it  was  not  a 
failure ;  but  it  might  have  been  a  dcbilt^  and  it  might  have  been 
a  triumph. 


272  JENNY   LIND 

Such,  at  any  rate,  is  our  impression. 

After  unequalled  glories  in  Berlin,  at  the  Gewandhaus  in 
Leipzig  (with  Mendelssohn  as  conductor)  and  in  Vienna — where 
her  diffidence  almost  seemed  like  frenzy,  for  once  arrived,  she  was 
seized  with  terror  and  refused  to  appear,  until  soundly  rated  by 
Mendelssohn's  friend,  Herr  Hauser ! — came  London,  in  1847. 
London  and  the  Jenny  Lind-fever !  With  what  words  can  we 
describe  it  ?  The  great  German  capitals  had  been  ravished,  but 
they  had  not  gone  stark  staring  mad.  That  was  left  for  London, 
and  London  accomplished  it  with  a  will.  The  crowds  at  the  doors, 
the  frightful  crushing  (Canon  Scott  Holland  remembers  having 
been  thrown  down  by  the  first  rush,  on  the  night  of  her  d^bilt, 
and  lying  for  a  second,  until  rescued  by  a  "  friendly  giant ",  in 
imminent  danger  of  being  trampled  to  death),  the  enormously 
raised  prices,  the  bursting  houses,  the  flowers,  tears,  cheers, 
"  hurricanes  of  applause,"  the  Queen's  presentation-bouquet  lying 
at  her  feet,  the  Royal  Family  attending  every  time  she  sang  .  .  . 
all  these  were  the  mere  sanities  of  the  fever.  The  delirium  was 
egregious.  Gloves  a  la  Lind,  handkerchiefs  a  la  Lind,  everything 
a  la  Lind  ;  women  dressing  a  la  SuMoise^  girls  singing  the  "  Jenny  " 
romance  or  dancing  the  "  Lind  "  Polka,  young  men  spending  their 
whole  allowance  on  stalls  ;  portraits  of  her  on  snuff-boxes, 
match-boxes,  bonbon-boxes,  tea-trays ;  horses,  cats,  dogs,  canaries, 
named  after  her  ;  broadsides  of  execrable  verse  selling  in  the 
streets  : — 

"  Oh,  is  there  not  a  pretty  fuss 

In  London  all  around 
About  the  Swedish  Nightingale 

The  talk  of  all  the  town  ? 
Each  Square  and  Street  as  through  you  pass, 

Aloud  with  praises  ring 
About  this  pretty  singing-bird 

The  famous  Jenny  Lind."  .  .  . 

.  .  .  What  fun  it  must  have  been — for  those  who  heard  her! 
But  three  unlucky  Liverpool  gentlemen  came  up  to  London  to 
hear  her,  stayed  a  week,  and  never  succeeded  in  getting  into  Her 
Majesty's  Theatre.  Two  thousand  pounds  a  night  were  the 
receipts  during  her  second  London  season  ;  crowds  would  wait 
outside  to  see  her  get  into  her  carriage,  and  the  places  nearest 


JENNY  LIND  273 

the  door  were  bought  for  "several  shillings!"  Oh,  London 
knew  how  to  go  mad. 

Her  dibM  was  in  Robert  le  Diable,  as  Alice,  but  the  greatest 
triumph  was  her  Amina  in  La  Sonnambula  ;  her  Maria,  in  the 
Fille  dti  Regiment,  was  also  exultantly  successful.  Her  Norma 
was  a  failure:  there  she  could  not  win  against  Grisi.  In  Le 
Nozze  di  Figaro  she  was  exquisite.  Her  shake,  her  portamento^ 
her  mezza-di-vocey  her  pianissimo  effects — all  these  set  the  critics 
quivering  with  joy.  The  columns  of  the  newspapers  panted  and 
thrilled,  like  the  Great  Heart  of  the  British  Public  :  it  was  that 
rare  combination  of  blazing  popularity  and  genuine  artistic 
perfection  which  perhaps  only  singers,  among  artists,  ever 
achieve.  .  .  . 

And  then,  in  May,  1849,  the  Last  Appearance  in  Opera ! 

She  chose  Robert  le  Diable  for  her  farewell,  which  was  to  be 
in  London.  "  So  continuous  were  the  plaudits  that  they  blended 
with  each  other  into  one  roll  of  heavy  sound.  The  audience 
universally  rose  when  she  appeared.  At  the  last  call,  she  seemed 
particularly  moved."  ..."  Did  she  feel  sad  t "  Canon  Scott 
Holland  asks,  and  answers  himself,  "  She  never  spoke  of  such  a 
sadness  in  after  life."  He  continues,  with  the  irritating  exulta- 
tion which  marks  his  comments  on  her  attitude  towards  her 
adoring  public :  "  That  the  last  round  of  applause,  the  last  wild 
shout  from  pit  and  stalls  and  gallery,  was  absolutely  nothing  to 
her,  we  know  well  enough.  .  .  .  She  was  too  well  accustomed 
to  it."  Is  it  possible  that  he  does  not  see  how  such  narrow  non- 
sense depreciates  the  woman  of  whom  he  writes !  Jenny  Lind 
had  a  warm  heart,  if  she  had  a  cold  nature.  "  Too  well  accus- 
tomed to  it"  is  no  mood  in  which  to  receive  such  love,  such 
admiration  as  that ;  if  she  had  such  a  thought,  she  is  by  so  much 
the  less  lovable — indeed,  she  is  not  lovable  at  all. 


Her  career  as  a  concert-  and  oratorio-singer  was  no  less 
triumphant  than  her  stage-career  had  been.  The  enormous 
sums  she  amassed  were  used  for  charitable  purposes  :  in  a  few 
months  in  England,  she  raised  the  sum  of  ;^io,5oo!  We  have 
seen  what  she  gained  in  America.  But,  for  our  part,  we  feel  that 
T 


274  JENNY  LIND 

the  climax  of  her  life  was  on  the  summer-night  in  1 849,  when  in 
that  delightful  form  of  art,  the  Lyric  Drama,  she  took  her  fare- 
well of  the  stage,  and  the  great  house  rocked  with  love  and  joy 
and  grief! 

Oratorios  and  charities  and  Bishops  who  did  not  know  one 
note  of  music  from  another,  and  Bishops'  wives  who  wrote,  "  Her 
manner  to  the  Bishop  is  so  reverential  .  .  .  the  singing  is  the 
least  part  of  the  charm  "  ;  and  further  (to  Canon  Scott  Holland's 
tearful  delight)  "  I  would  rather  hear  Jenny  talk  than  sing  "... 
these,  outlaws  that  we  are,  bring  but  a  twinkle  of  the  eye  at  the 
best,  a  sense  of  intolerable  snobbishness  at  the  worst.  "One 
very  remarkable  thing  is  .  .  .  that  she  treats  her  superiors  as 
we  treat  Royalty  :  never  originates  anything,  never  speaks  first, 
never  comes  to  sit  down  by  you."  (sic)  ....  It  is  no  less  im- 
pressive than  enlightening  to  the  lay-mind  to  realise  that  this  is 
the  report  of  a  hostess  upon  her  guest ;  for  the  imperishable 
passage  is  taken  from  one  of  Mrs.  Stanley's  (Bishop's  Wife  to 
the  Bishop  of  Norwich)  letters  during  Jenny  Lind's  visit  in  1849, 
immediately  before  she  left  the  stage.  Was  it  for  such  delights 
that  she  disdained  the  Opera  ?  The  visit  must,  it  is  true,  have 
been  unforgettable — a  glory  to  which  it  were  wise  (lest  it  also 
should  pall)  not  to  get  too  well-accustomed. 

But  let  us  leave  it — let  us  escape  from  the  Bishops'  wives.  .  .  . 
What  shall  we  take  from  her  last  ?  Another  of  her  attractive 
letters  }  that  written  immediately  after  the  d^b^t  in  London  (in 
1847)  to  friends  in  "my  Vienna"  : — '' Mon  Dieu,  mon  Dieu  !  how 
splendidly  everything  has  gone  with  me.  .  .  .  Yesterday,  I  made 
my  first  appearance — and  it  went  so^  that  all  through  the  night  I 
could  not  sleep  for  joy ! "  Is  not  that  good — better  than  the 
reverential  manner  and  the  knowing  her  place  ? 

And  then,  to  finish,  to  show  how  long  the  memory  of  her 
wildwood-charm  could  last,  and  how  strangely,  how  unexpectedly 
it  could  penetrate,  hear  this  little  story,  vouched  for  by  a  living 
eye-witness. 

"On  a  November  morning  in  1887,  a  cosmopolitan  Jew,  once 
well  known  in  London,  a  hardened  old  worldling,  but  a  '  man  of 
sentiment '  and  a  passionate  lover  of  all  the  arts,  was  sitting  up 
in  bed  in  his  house  at  Buyukdere  on  the  Bosphorus,  reading  The 


JENNY   LIND  275 

Times.  At  a  table  near  the  window,  scrutinising  the  morning's 
mail,  stood  his  young  secretary.  Hearing  what  sounded  like  a_ 
sob,  the  latter  glanced  round  suddenly.  The  old  Jew's  eyes 
were  closed — large  tears  were  coursing  down  his  cheeks.  .  .  . 
The  Times  had  fallen  from  his  trembling  fingers ;  the  secretary 
saw,  standing  out  in  leaded  type  from  the  page,  words,  to  him 
insignificant  enough :  "  DEATH  OF  Jenny  Lind."  .  .  .  But  they 
had  set  the  nerves  a- tingle  for  the  one  who  knew— with  all  those 
years  between !  Death  of  Jenny  Lind — and  the  old  man's  tears. 
This  is  the  Singer's  epitaph.  Even  the  Bishops'  wives  and 
Barnum  could  not  blot  it  all  out :  that  lover  of  all  the  arts,  in 
1887,  was  remembering  her  "at  the  Opera." 


THE     «  EGERIA  " 


TERESA  GAMBA  GUICCIOLI 

1802-1873 

"  Her  love  was  Byron's  best  reward, 
His  laurels  twine  around  her  name, 
And  ever  with  the  English  Bard 
The  Guiccioli  will  rise  to  fame." 

THESE  lines  were  written,  in  all  seriousness,  by  the  renowned 
"  Speranza  "  (Lady  Wilde)  to  the  author  of  one  of  the 
silliest  books  it  has  ever  been  our  lot  to  read.  This  is 
the  Recollections  of  Two  Distinguished  Persons^  by  Mary  R. 
Darby-Smith — a  title  which  sufficiently  forecasts  the  contents. 
One  of  the  Distinguished  Persons  is  the  Marquise  de  Boissy — 
formerly  the  Countess  Guiccioli,  who  assuredly  has  risen  to  fame 
on  no  other  pretext  than  her  connection  with  the  "  English  Bard." 
"  His  laurels  twine  around  her  name  " — and  it  gives  one  no  pleasure 
whatever  to  see  them  there. 

"  Tout  Byron  a^noureux"  says  the  incisive  Frenchman,  Felix 
Rabbe,  "  se  resume  en  deux  mots :  besoin  impMeux  de  lafemme  et 
m^pris  de  la  femme"  ...  La  Guiccioli  believed  that  she  had 
reduced  the  two  words  to  one,  or  feigned,  in  later  life,  to  believe 
it.  We  shall  see,  in  reading  his  account  (as  given  in  his  lavish, 
characteristic  letters)  of  their  liaison,  which  "  word "  dominated 
their  relationship  to  one  another. 


She  was  the  daughter  of  Count  Gamba,  a  nobleman  of 
Ravenna,  was  born  in  1802,  and  educated  in  a  convent  until  she 
was  fifteen.  At  sixteen  she  was  married  to  Count  Guiccioli — 
very  rich,  with  large  estates  on  the  borders  of  Ancona  and 
Bologna.     Teresa  was  his  third  wife,  and  he  was  older  than  her 

279 


280  TERESA   GAMBA  GUICCIOLI 

father.  She  was  a  pretty,  not  a  beautiful,  woman.  There  was 
a  certain  massiveness  about  her  build  which  makes  the  caustic 
Jeaffreson  use,  in  describing  her,  the  impossible  epithet  "  chumpy  "  : 
her  neck,  shoulders,  arms,  and  bust,  however,  were  superb.  No 
sylph,  in  short,  but  a  "  very  broad-breasted,  full-waisted  Contessa," 
with  large  languishing  blue  eyes,  amazingly  long  lashes,  arched 
eyebrows,  "wickedly  pretty  teeth,"  and  a  mass  of  magnificent 
hair — "so  absolutely  golden  that  if  a  guinea-gold  fillet  of  the 
deepest  yellowness  ever  seen  in  gold,  had  been  put  about  her 
head,  the  tress  and  the  ornament  would  have  been  precisely  the 
same  hue  and  quality  of  colour." 

Six  months  after  her  marriage  in  the  autumn  of  1818,  Byron 
met  Teresa  Guiccioli  for  the  first  time,  at  one  of  the  Countess 
Benzoni's  receptions  in  Venice.  Neither  had  desired  the  intro- 
duction. The  lady  was  tired,  and  had  come  to  the  party  only  to 
oblige  her  husband ;  Byron  hated  to  make  new  acquaintances, 
and  yielded  merely  to  please  his  hostess.  But  the  Guiccioli 
throws  around  the  incident  a  glittering  veil  of  romance.  "  When 
I  entered  the  room,  I  saw  what  seemed  to  be  a  beautiful  appari- 
tion reclining  on  a  sofa.  .  .  .  Asked  if  he  would  be  presented 
to  me,  Byron  answered :  '  No.  I  cannot  know  her — she  is  too 
beautiful'  " 

If  Byron  really  made  this  particularly  foolish  answer,  it  must 
have  been  in  a  spirit  of  the  purest  persiflage ;  but  it  is  much  more 
likely  that  he  never,  in  any  tone,  said  any  such  thing.  He  did, 
it  is  true,  admire  Teresa  :  her  buxom  type  appealed  to  him.  Yet 
this  "  plump  little  countess  "  (Jeaffreson  again  !)  wrote  of  him  that 
he  was  "  incapable  of  loving  a  woman  unless  she  seemed  to  him 
an  almost  immaterial  being."  That  seems  to  have  been  her  way 
of  saying  that  he  could  never  bear  to  see  a  woman  eat — his  well- 
known  ridiculous  whim. 

In  a  sense,  however,  it  was  love  at  first  sight.  Byron  "  made 
up  his  mind  to  enslave  her  " ;  and  as  he  learned  from  her  that  she 
and  her  husband  were  leaving  Venice  in  a  fortnight,  he  had  not 
much  time  to  lose.  "  At  parting,  Lord  Byron  wrote  something 
on  a  scrap  of  paper  and  handed  it  to  me."  From  that  evening, 
they  saw  one  another  every  day.  There  were  few  Platonic 
beatings  about  the  bush.     The  husband  gave  them  eleven  days 


TERESA   GAMBA  GUICCIOLI  281 

— "  it  was  enough."  They  were  lovers  when  the  Count  set  out 
upon  his  annual  spring  visit  to  his  Romagnese  States,  and  took 
his  wife  with  him.  Teresa  fainted  three  times  on  the  first  day's 
journey,  but  managed  to  write  to  Byron  at  every  stage.  When 
she  arrived  at  Ravenna,  she  was  "  half-dead " — but  still  she 
managed  to  write  to  Byron. 

He,  left  behind,  was  not  at  all  unhappy.  The  "  Carnival  of 
Venice  "  was  over ;  the  utterly  vicious  life  which  he  had  led  there 
had  ceased  some  time  before  he  met  Teresa  Guiccioli.  Byron's 
return  to  the  decencies  of  life  has  often  been  attributed  to  her 
influence,  but  Jeaffreson,  in  his  interesting  book,  has  shown  con- 
clusively that  this  is  not  the  truth.  The  truth  is,  very  prosaically, 
that  the  terrible  depravation  of  this  period  made  him  extremely 
ill,  and  that  when  he  recovered,  he  gave  it  up.  There  was  nothing 
pernicious  that  he  had  not  done.  His  palace  on  the  Grand  Canal 
had  been  a  sort  of  harem,  filled  with  women  of  the  lowest  class. 
"  Less  harm  would  have  come  to  him  from  these  creatures,"  writes 
Jeaffreson,  "  had  he  possessed  the  cynical  hardness  and  spiritual 
grossness  to  think  of  them  as  animals.  ...  To  call  his  feeling, 
love  would  be  a  profanation  ;  but  no  less  sacred  word  would 
adequately  describe  the  fleeting  sentiment  of  perverted  sympathy 
and  debasing  admiration  with  which  he  cherished  these  miserable 
wretches."  Rabbe,  with  the  Gallic  faculty  for  summing  up  a 
complexity  in  a  phrase,  calls  him  "  Ce  Don  Juan  de  Vidiair  And 
again :  "  He  had  a  mania  for  posing  as  the  dupe  of  women  and 
the  victim  of  love.  .  .  .  The  contrast  between  his  ideal  of  love 
and  the  reality  was  radical  and  absolute."  He  was  like  the 
man  described  by  Pascal,  ^^ qui  voulant  faire  range,  fait  la  bete" 
Moreover,  at  this  time  he  was  indulging  himself  in  eating  and 
drinking  to  an  extent  which  he  never  was  able  to  attempt  with 
impunity.  His  ordinary  starvation-diet  was  partly  the  effect  of 
a  weak  digestion,  but  more  largely  his  self-chosen  method  of 
keeping  the  slender  and  interesting  proportions  which  he  always 
lost  when  he  ate  largely.  At  Venice,  during  this  phase,  he 
did  eat  largely,  and  he  drank  tremendously.  The  result  was 
"  maddening  torment."  It  was  this  punishment  which  retrieved 
him  from  vice,  and  not,  alas  !  Teresa's  influence. 

He  stayed  in  Venice  for  a  month  after  her  departure  ;  and 


282  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

wrote  several  flippant  letters  about  his  "  love-affair  "  to  Hoppner,* 
his  closest  friend.  Flippant  is  indeed  a  feeble  description  of  the 
epistles  which  Hoppner  then  received  from  him ;  and  when  he 
did  at  last  set  out  (on  June  2nd)  for  Ravenna,  he  despatched 
another  letter  on  the  way  : — "  A  journey  in  an  Italian  June  is  a 
conscription,  and  if  I  was  not  the  most  constant  of  men,  I  should 
now  be  swimming  in  the  Lido,  instead  of  smoking  in  the  dust  of 
Padua."  Perceiving,  nevertheless,  with  the  inward  eye  of  solitude, 
how  picturesque  was  this  "conscription",  he  also  wrote  on  the 
way  a  long  sentimental  poem,  the  familiar  verses  to  the 

"  River,  that  roUest  by  the  ancient  walls, 
Where  dwells  the  lady  of  my  love  " — 

filled  with  all  the  Byronic  glamour,  the  absurd,  but  then  irre- 
sistible, Byronic  "  properties  "  :  the  murky  stream  and  the  murky 
heart,  the  burnt-out  passions,  tears,  "  meridian  blood."  .  .  . 

"  'Tis  vain  to  struggle — let  me  perish  young —  " 

ah,  how  young  he  for  ever  was,  for  ever,  no  matter  at  what 
age  he  had  died,  would  have  remained ! 

At  last  he  reached  Ravenna.  No  sooner  had  he  alighted 
than  Count  Guiccioli  called,  and  invited  him  to  the  Palace.  "It 
will  distract  the  Countess  in  her  illness,"  he  said,  with  how  much 
of  conscious  irony  we  shall  never  know.  Byron  went  next  day, 
and  found  her  really  in  a  serious  condition.  He  was  deeply 
concerned.  He  collected  medical  books  and  studied  them 
incessantly  ;  in  the  end,  he  persuaded  the  Count  to  send  for 
Aglietti,  the  renowned  Venetian  doctor,  who  was  a  friend  of  his. 
Aglietti  came,  and  ordered  "  a  continuance  of  the  treatment." 

Byron  accordingly  went  on  visiting  the  lady  every  day. 

The  treatment  was  studiously  followed  for  two  months,  the 
Count  acquiescing.  His  attitude  is  enigmatic,  for  he  had  been 
notoriously  jealous  of  his  two  former  wives.  Byron  explained  it 
in  another  letter  to  Hoppner  :  "  The  fact  appears  to  be  that  he  is 
completely  governed  by  her — for  that  matter,"  he  added,  in  his 
favourite  pose,  "so  am  I."  But  the  extraordinary  Italian 
institution  of  the  cavaliere  servente,  or  cicisbeo,  should  not  be 
*  The  Britannic  Consul-General  at  Venice. 


TERESA   GAMBA  GUICCIOLI  28S 

forgotten  in  judging  Count  Guiccioli.  Italian  ladies  were 
accustomed  to  this  luxury,  upon  which  Byron  had  later  many 
entertaining  comments  to  make  for  his  correspondents.  Teresa 
herself  declared,  when  her  husband  did  tardily  object  to  the 
affair :  "  It  is  hard  that  I  should  be  the  only  woman  in  Romagna 
who  is  not  to  have  her  amico"  .  .  .  The  Count,  old  and  well- 
experienced,  probably  winked  at  the  liaison  because  he  knew  that 
it  would  go  on  no  matter  what  he  did  ;  and,  just  as  probably, 
was  counting  on  Byron's  notorious  fickleness  to  make  it  a  short 
affair. 

The  two  months  from  June  to  August  went  by  very 
amusingly.  It  was  a  fine  opportunity,  though,  for  a  dis- 
play of  the  famous  melancholy,  and  accordingly  in  July,  we 
find  Byron  possessed  with  the  conviction  that  the  Guiccioli 
is  going  into  consumption.  "  Her  constitution  tends  that 
way."  (It  did  nothing  of  the  kind.)  "I  never  even  could 
keep  alive  a  dog,  that  I  liked  or  that  liked  me."  He  dashed 
off  some  verses  (which  are  not  in  his  published  works) — 

*'  I  heard  thy  fate  without  a  tear, 
Thy  loss  with  scarce  a  sigh  ; 
And  yet  thou  wert  surpassing  dear, 

Too  loved  of  all  to  die. 
I  know  not  what  hath  seared  mine  eye —  " 

but  no  more !  It  is  when  we  read  such  stuff  as  this  that  the 
astonishment  which  Byron  never  fails  to  provoke  rises  as  freshly 
as  if  it  had  never  risen  before.  What  was  the  secret  of  his  spell } 
True,  this  performance  was  never  published,  but  it  is  no  worse 
than  many  that  were — and  puerile  is  the  epithet  which  suits  them 
all.  We  must  remember  that  it  was  not  only  the  "  Public  "  whom 
he  enslaved  :  it  was  critics,  men  of  the  world,  of  culture,  of  learn- 
ing. .  .  .  Personal  glamour  is  the  only  answer  to  that  eternal 
question :  a  degree  of  personal  glamour  which,  it  is  not  too 
much  to  say,  has  never  been  possessed  by  anyone  else  in  the 
world.  Even  now,  when  criticism  has  altered  so  radically,  when 
the  work  for  which  he  was  then  condemned  by  his  most  ardent 
adorers,  is  recognised  as  not  only  Byron's  Weltgedicht,  but,  as 
Brandos  justly  says,  "  the  only  poem  of  our  century  which  bears 
comparison  with  Goethe's  Faust'' — even  now,  it  is  the  absurd. 


284  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

sublime,  endearing,  dazzling  figure,  "  the  theatrical  hero,  the  knot 
of  whose  necktie  was  a  model  for  all  the  world,"  the  brave,  the 
desperate,  the  fierce,  the  sentimental,  inflammable,  cynical, 
flippant— it  is  Byron  as  Man,  far  more  than  as  Poet,  who  enthrals 
the  imagination  of  everyone  who  reads  even  a  single  book  about 
him.  A  single  book — and  there  must  be  hundreds!  Besides 
his  own  countrymen.  Frenchmen,  Germans,  Italians,  critics  of 
every  cultured  nation  have  "felt  the  call" — have  been  driven 
to  write  about  Byron.  .  .  .  Character — absorbingly  human 
character :  that  was  one  thing.  Ondoyant  et  divers  he  was,  if 
man  ever  was.  Fascination  too — the  incalculable  element ;  and 
then,  beauty,  "matchless  beauty",  a  beauty  about  which  such 
men  as  Walter  Scott,  Coleridge,  the  austere  Stendhal,  were 
eloquent. 

"I  never  in  my  life  saw  anything  more  beautiful  or  more 
impressive.  Even  now,  when  I  think  of  the  expression  which  a 
great  painter  should  give  to  genius,  I  always  have  before  me 
that  magnificent  head.  ...  It  was  the  serene  look  of  genius 
and  power."  So  Stendhal  wrote.  And  Walter  Scott:  "The 
beauty  of  Byron  is  one  which  makes  one  dream.  .  .  .  No  picture 
is  like  him." 


During  the  two  months'  "  treatment ",  Byron  wrote  to 
Murray : 

"  I  see  my  Dama  every  day.  ...  In  losing  her,  I  should  lose 
a  being  who  has  run  great  risks  on  my  account,  and  whom  I 
have  every  reason  to  love.  I  do  not  know  what  I  should  do  if 
she  died,  but  I  ought  to  blow  my  brains  out — and  I  hope  that  I 
should."  Amazing — the  sincerity  of  this !  There  is  no  pose  in 
these  letters  :  rarely  have  women  the  opportunity  of  reading 
anything  which  more  deeply  proves  the  truth  of  his  renowned 
saying  :  "  Man's  love  is  of  man's  life  a  thing  apart." 

By  August,  the  Countess  was  well,  and  the  Count  prepared 
to  move  to  Bologna.  There  was  nothing  agreeable  in  this  plan 
either  to  Teresa  or  Byron.  He  particularly  liked  Ravenna  ;  he 
hated  moving — "if  I  stay  six  days  in  a  place,  I  require  six 
months  to  get  out  of  it "  ;  and,  to  sum  up  all,  the  project  of 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  285 

departure  set  in  motion  a  whole  tangle  of  complications.  The 
idea  of  following  Teresa  in  the  capacity  of  cavaliere.  servente 
revolted  him.  So  detestable  was  the  prospect  that  he  actually, 
to  escape  it,  implored  her  to  fly.  But  this  was  to  her  unthink- 
able. "  To  an  Italian  wife,  everything  is  forgiven  but  the  actual 
leaving  of  her  husband.  To  abandon  him  for  the  lover  seems 
the  natural  consequence,  in  England,  of  the  original  error — in 
Italy  it  alone  is  the  error,  and  from  its  rarity  seems  no  less 
monstrous  than  odious."  She  proposed,  in  place  of  this  horror, 
to  represent  herself  as  dead,  like  Juliet — to  allow  herself  to 
be  committed  to  the  shroud  and  vault,  thence  to  escape  secretly 
to  his  arms,  and  save  the  honour  of  the  Gambas  and  Guicciolis. 

Byron's  face  must  have  expressed  many  feelings  as  he  read 
the  letter  which  made  this  proposal !  There  is  a  half-pathetic, 
half-ludicrous  note  in  the  picture  of  the  golden-haired  girl  bent 
over  her  paper,  sketching  the  gruesome  plan — we  can  guess  with 
what  decorative  phrases  of  adoring  love — and  Byron  reading,  in 
solitary  annoyance !  Teresa's  plan  was  rejected ;  and  as  she 
would  not  fly,  he  resigned  himself  to  follow,  working  off  his  secret 
annoyance  in  letters,  as  usual. 

"  My  Mistress  dear,  who  hath  fed  my  heart  upon  smiles  and 
wine  for  the  last  two  months,  set  off  for  Bologna  with  her 
husband  this  morning,  and  it  seems  that  I  follow  him  at  3  to- 
morrow morning.  I  cannot  tell  how  our  romance  will  end, 
but  it  has  gone  on  hitherto  most  erotically.  Such  perils  and 
escapes  !     Juan's  are  as  child's  play  in  comparison."  .  .  . 

On  the  1 2th  of  August,  we  find  him,  in  the  best  hotel  at 
Bologna,  continuing,  "  not  enthusiastically,"  his  new  profession 
of  cicisbeo.  On  the  night  he  arrived,  he  had  an  hysterical  seizure 
in  the  Countess'  box  at  the  theatre,  and — with  a  tactlessness 
surely  unparalleled  in  the  annals  of  woman — the  Countess  had 
one  too!  .  .  .  He  was  almost  beside  himself  just  then  with 
enervation  and  nervous  strain.  The  Don  Juan  worry  was  in 
full  blast,  he  was  writing  incessantly  vivid,  angry  letters  to 
Murray — "amid  a  thousand  vexations",  "out  of  sorts,  out  of 
nerves,  and  (I  begin  to  fear),  out  of  my  senses."  But  fortunately 
the  trial-essay  was  not  a  long  one.  On  August  21st,  the 
Guicciolis  left  Bologna  to  visit  the  Romagnese  Estates.    Byron 


^86  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

remained  behind,  in  a  fantastic  state  of  mind,  alternating  between 
fury  and  acute  depression.  One  day  he  would  dash  off  a  violent 
letter  to  his  critics  ;  the  next,  would  wander  up  to  the  deserted 
house,  have  her  rooms  opened,  and  sit  there  turning  over  her 
books  and  writing  in  them.  Her  copy  of  Corinne  bears  two 
inscriptions :  one  the  famous  love-letter,  written  in  English  on  the 
last  page  of  the  volume,  on  August  25th,  1819. 

"My  dearest  Teresa, 

"  I  have  read  this  book  in  your  garden  ; — my  love,  you 
were  absent,  or  else  I  could  not  have  read  it.  It  is  a  favourite 
book  of  yours,  and  the  writer  was  a  friend  of  mine.  You  will 
not  understand  these  English  words,  and  others  will  not  under- 
stand them — which  is  the  reason  I  have  not  scrawled  them  in 
Italian.  But  you  will  recognise  the  handwriting  of  him  who 
passionately  loved  you,  and  you  will  divine  that,  over  a  book 
which  was  yours,  he  could  only  think  of  love.  In  that  word, 
beautiful  in  all  languages,  but  most  so  in  yours — Amor  mio — is 
comprised  my  existence  here  and  hereafter.  I  feel  I  exist  here, 
and  I  fear  that  I  shall  exist  hereafter — to  what  purpose  you  will 
decide ;  my  destiny  rests  with  you,  and  you  are  a  woman,  seven- 
teen years  of  age,  and  two  out  of  a  convent.  I  wish  that  you 
had  stayed  there,  with  all  my  heart — or  at  least  that  I  had  never 
met  you  in  your  married  state.  But  all  this  is  too  late,  I  love  you, 
and  you  love  me, — at  least,  you  say  so,  and  act  as  if  you  did  so, 
which  last  is  a  great  consolation  at  all  events.  But  /  more  than 
love  you.  Think  of  me  sometimes,  when  the  Alps  and  the  ocean 
divide  us — but  they  never  will,  unless  you  wish  it. 

"Byron" 

(In  later  years,  Teresa  quoted  these  last  words,  and  added  in 
a  note :  "  On  ne  le  voulait pas ;  done  ce  ne fut pas")  The  hesitant, 
melancholy  sentences,  the  strange  whim  of  writing  in  a  language 
which  Teresa  did  not  understand,  that  sentiment,  never  the  true 
lover's  :  "  /  wish  we  Jiad  not  met " — how  different  from  the  quick 
word-beat,  the  directness,  the  forthrightness  of  his  other  letters ! 
Languor  and  uncertainty  impregnate  this  message  with  a  kind  of 
mental  miasma.     He  used  himself  to  tell  of  his  having  had,  at 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  287 

this  time,  another  of  his  hysterical  outbursts  in  the  gardens  of  the 
villa,  when  he  was  "  looking  into  the  fountain."  How  like  Byron 
is  that  touch  of  "  the  fountain ! "  And  the  reason  for  the  out- 
burst is  no  less  characteristic.  It  was  fatal  to  be  loved  by  him  ! 
,  .  .  This  fantasy  produced  the  great  Don  Juan  stanza  : — 

"  Oh  Love  !     What  is  it,  in  this  world  of  ours 
Which  makes  it  fatal  to  be  loved  ?  .  .  ." 

Yet  at  this  very  time,  he  could  write  to  Murray,  "  All  my  present 
pleasures  or  plagues  are  as  Italian  as  the  Opera.  And  after  all 
they  are  but  trifles." 

In  September,  the  Guicciolis  returned  to  Bologna ;  but  the 
Count  left  soon  afterwards  for  Ravenna,  and  this  time  he  did  not 
take  his  wife.     The  consequences  were  immediate  and  remarkable. 

On  the  1 8th  of  September,  the  Countess  left  for  Venice, 
accompanied  by  Byron. 

Reasons  were  given :  it  was  not  an  elopement — and  the 
reasons  were  "  doctor's  orders."  Teresa  wrote  to  her  husband, 
asking  his  permission  to  go  to  Venice  with  her  cicisheo  in  atten- 
dance, and  the  Count  consented.  Byron  might  well  find  him 
puzzling  ;  the  world  has  since  found  him  something  more  definite. 
And  indeed,  Byron  had  ere  long  the  word  of  the  enigma.  .  .  . 
Arrived  in  Venice,  another  accommodating  doctor  pronounced 
country-air  to  be  essential.  Byron  had  a  country-villa  at  La 
Mira.  The  Countess  exquisitely  delineates  the  situation  :  "  He 
gave  it  up  to  me,  and  came  to  reside  there  with  me."  Comment 
would  be  profanation  of  so  brilliant  an  epigram. 

La  Mira,  like  Browning's  hill-chapel,  had  had  "  its  scenes,  its 
joys  and  crimes  "  ;  it  had  housed  Marianna  Segati  and  Margarita 
Cogni,  the  two  low  women  of  the  "  Carnival  of  Venice  "  period  ; 
yet  it  was  to  La  Mira  that  Byron  brought  Teresa  Guiccioli. 
Jeaffreson  regards  this  as  the  proof  that  she  was  not  (as  Moore 
affirms)  "the  only  real  love  of  his  whole  life,  with  one  single 
exception."  *  His  point  is  that  Byron  regarded  her  as  "  nothing 
more  than  a  highly  eligible  mistress."  But  he  over-labours  it 
Chiarini,  the  thoughtful  Italian  critic  of  Byron,  attaches  some 
importance  to  this  incident,  but  dismisses  it  as  a  blunder.     To  us, 

*  The  exception  being  Mary  Chaworth,  the  "  lady  "  of  The  Drea?ti. 


288  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

blameworthy  it  certainly  appears  ;  yet,  given  the  man,  not  of  vital 
significance.  Dilatory  and  impulsive  (that  fatal  combination), 
detesting  "  racket "  and  arrangements,  detesting  too  his  present 
position,  Byron's  one  idea  was  probably  to  "  get  some  peace  " ;  and 
in  this  aim,  he  lost  sight  of  every  other  consideration.  Country- 
air  had  been  ordered  for  a  lady  who  was — rather  inconveniently — 
here,  and  there  was  his  villa  !  ...  So  he  saw  it,  and  only  so — 
for  good  taste  and  tact  were  things  to  which  he  was  all  his  life  a 
stranger. 

Moore,  arriving  in  early  October,  came  in  for  bits  of  many 
people's  minds  about  his  illustrious  friend.  Madame  Benzoni, 
especially,  had  much  to  say.  "  What  a  pity !  "  she  lamented,  "  he 
had  behaved  so  perfectly  up  to  that  time."  .  .  .  Moore  saw  a 
change  in  Byron,  who  had  again  grown  stout,  and  was  wearing  a 
moustache,  because  somebody  had  said  he  had  a  face  like  a 
musician.  His  hair  was  long,  and  he  wore  most  eccentric  head- 
gear. Whether  all  this  portended  boredom  or  not,  Moore  did 
not  at  once  perceive,  but  what  he  did  perceive  was  that  decidedly 
Byron  was  a  little  too  glad  to  see  him.  They  went  off  on 
excursions  together — the  cicisbeo  was  given  an  "evening  out," 
and  rejoiced  like  a  schoolboy.  Moore  watched  and  perpended. 
At  last,  the  time  came  for  him  to  move  on  to  Rome,  and  he 
found  that  Byron  was  nursing  a  project  of  going  with  him.  The 
Irishman  was  horrified.  He  pointed  out  the  cruelty  of  such  a 
proceeding.  "  You  cannot  leave  the  Countess  in  such  a  position  : 
it  would  be  most  humiliating  to  her."  The  amazing  lover  sighed 
and  acquiesced. 

Before  Teresa  Guiccioli  came  into  his  life,  another  woman 
had  loved  him  ;  and  that  woman  had  characterised  him  in  three 
words,  the  only  sensible  ones,  perhaps,  which  she  ever  uttered 
with  regard  to  him.  "  Mad,  bad,  and  dangerous  to  know  " — so 
Caroline  liamb  had  spoken.  It  was  her  first  impression,  and  it 
can  never  have  been  altered,  though  she  adored  him  to  her  dying 
day.  She  said  of  him  in  her  wild  unhappy  book,  Glenarvon  : — 
"  Oh,  better  far  to  have  died  than  to  see  or  listen  to  Glenarvon  ! 
...  Is  there,  in  the  nature  of  woman,  the  possibility  of  listening 
to  him  without  cherishing  every  word  he  utters  .^  .  .  .  When  he 
smiled,  his  smile  was  like  the  light  of  heaven." 


tp:resa  gamba  guiccioli 

FROM    AN    ENGRAVING    BY   J.    THOMSON    AFTER    THE    I'ICTURE    BY    A.    E.    CHALON,'  R.A. 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  289 

He  did  not  often  smile  on  her,  poor  lady  !  La  Guiccioli  was 
more  fortunate,  but  she  paid  her  price  no  less.  She  was  unequal 
to  the  terrible  position  of  a  woman  in  love  with  Byron.  When 
Shelley  saw  her  in  1821,  two  years  after  this,  he  wrote:  "La 
Guiccioli  is  a  very  pretty,  sentimental,  innocent  Italian  .  .  .  who, 
if  I  know  anything  of  my  friend,  of  her,  and  of  human  nature, 
will  hereafter  have  plenty  of  leisure  and  opportunity  to  repent 
her  rashness."  Leigh  Hunt  was  blunter — and  nearer  to  the 
truth.  "  Madame  Guiccioli  was  a  kind  of  buxom  parlour-boarder, 
compressing  herself  artificially  into  dignity  and  elegance,  and 
fancying  she  walked  in  the  eyes  of  the  world,  a  heroine  by  the 
side  of  a  poet.  ...  I  did  not  think  her  a  very  intelligent  person. 
She  could  smile  very  sweetly  and  look  intelligently  when  Lord 
Byron  said  something  kind  to  her." 

When  Lord  Byron  said  something  kind  to  her.  The  phrase, 
so  unconsciously  written,  is  very  pregnant.  .  .  .  He  was  at  that 
time  seriously  thinking  of  a  return  to  England,  and  an  attempt 
at  reconciliation  with  his  wife.  But  he  felt  himself  bound  to 
Teresa.  He  wrote  to  Murray  in  November  of  this  year :  "  I 
have  got  the  poor  girl  into  a  scrape,  and  as  neither  her  birth,  nor 
her  rank,  nor  her  connections  by  birth  and  marriage,  are  inferior 
to  my  own,  I  am  in  honour  bound  to  support  her  through."  Rabbe 
has  a  stinging  comment :  "  It  would  be  difficult  to  express  more 
cynically  the  noble  motive  which  had  prevented  him  from  being 
the  support  of  Claire  Claremont."  There  is  no  answer  to  that. 
The  letter  to  Murray  utterly  repels,  as  indeed  his  letters  all 
through  the  affair  repel,  for  the  amusement  they  create  is  an 
ignoble  amusement.  There  are  moments,  truly,  when  the  glamour 
fails — when  one  utterly  despises  Byron. 

It  was  now,  when  his  wife  had  been  openly  living  for  a  fort- 
night with  the  "  English  lord ",  that  Count  Guiccioli  at  last 
made  a  move.  He  wrote,  requesting  her  to  induce  Lord  Byron 
to  lend  him  ;£"iooo.  On  loan,  of  course — at  five  per  cent. ;  any 
other  terms  would  be  an  avvilimento.  .  .  .  Pity  for  the  girl 
redoubles  as  one  comes  to  this  episode.  Byron  was  unwilling 
to  lend  the  money  ;  he  was  in  a  penurious  mood — perhaps 
Teresa  was  extravagant.  He  had  begun  to  keep  a  hoarding- 
box,  and  to  grumble  at  "that  climax  of  all  earthly  ills,  The 
u 


290  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

inflammation  of  one's  weekly  bills "  ;  and  though  his  friends 
advised  him  to  lend  the  money  and  take  the  opportunity  of 
returning  the  lady,  he  replied  that  he  could  not  pay  so  high  as 
that  for  his  frolic,  adding  that  he  wagered  (and  the  challenge 
was  accepted)  he  would  "  manage  to  save  the  money  and  the 
lady  too." 

Here  is  a  letter  to  Hoppner  in  the  end  of  October. 

"  Oct.  29, 1819. 

"  Count  G.  comes  to  Venice  next  week  and  I  am  requested 
to  consign  his  wife  to  him,  which  shall  be  done.  What  you  say 
of  the  long  evenings  at  the  Mira,  or  Venice,  reminds  me  of  what 
Curran  said  to  Moore :  '  So  I  hear  you  have  married  a  pretty 
woman,  and  a  very  good  creature,  too — an  excellent  creature 
Pray — um  !  how  do  you  pass  your  evenings  ? '  It  is  a  devil  of  a 
question,  and  perhaps  as  easy  to  answer  with  a  wife  as  with  a 
mistress."  .  .  . 

Guiccioli  arrived  at  Venice  the  first  week  in  November,  and 
demanded  his  wife.  Byron  was  ready,  but  the  Countess  was 
not.  The  discussions  lasted  till  December  4th.  Byron  gave  her 
no  encouragement.  True,  he  was  ill,  but  he  was  not  too  ill  to 
advise  her  to  go  back  with  her  husband.  There  was  a  paper  of 
conditions  to  be  signed — the  principal  article  being  that  all 
intercourse  of  any  kind  whatever  should  cease  between  her  and 
Byron.  The  Countess  wept,  she  pleaded — but  she  had  to  go. 
Milord  had  won  his  wager :  he  had  "  saved  the  lady  and  the 
money  too." 

The  promise  not  to  correspond  was  quickly  broken.  Byron's 
love-letters  are  inferior  to  all  his  other  writings  ;  but  they  were 
effective  enough  to  bring  Teresa  once  more  to  the  brink  of 
"consumption".  She  fretted  and  pined,  she  frightened  her 
father  and  uncle ;  letters  went  and  came,  she  grew  worse,  and 
finally  the  astounding  gentlemen  of  the  families  made  up  their 
minds  that  Byron  must  be  recalled.  Her  father,  Count  Gamba, 
was  deputed  to  write  the  summons. 

But  Byron  had  almost  decided  to  return  to  England,  and  had 
even  chosen  the  route  by  which  he  would  travel.  .  .  .  *^  He  was 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  291 

ready  dressed  for  the  journey,  his  gloves  and  cap  on,  and  even 
his  little  cane  in  his  hand.  Nothing  was  now  waited  for  but  his 
coming  downstairs — his  boxes  being  already  all  on  board  the 
gondola.  At  this  moment,  my  Lord,  by  way  of  pretext,  declares 
that  if  it  should  strike  one  o'clock  before  everything  was  in  order 
(his  arms  being  the  only  thing  not  yet  quite  ready)  he  would 
not  go  that  day.  The  hour  strikes — and  he  remains ! "  The 
next  day  came  the  summons  to  Ravenna.  It  was  guaranteed 
that  there  would  be  no  further  trouble  with  Count  Guiccioli.  .  .  . 
Destiny  or  Chance  ?  It  was  beyond  all  question  destiny — that 
most  ineludible  destiny  of  all,  which  is  character. 

Before  he  went,  he  wrote  to  Murray  on  December  loth  : 
"  Your  Blackwood  accuses  me  of  treating  women  harshly :  it 
may  be  so,  but  I  have  been  their  martyr  ;  my  whole  life  has 
been  sacrificed  to  them  and  dy  them."  And  it  is,  in  an  odd  per- 
verted way,  true  that  he  sacrificed  a  great  deal  to  women,  while 
desiring  all  the  time  to  be  free  of  them.  Scarcely  in  one  of  his 
love-affairs  is  any  trace  of  genuine  devotion  to  be  found;  yet 
the  whole  course  of  his  life  was  swayed  by  women.  "  Besot'n 
imph-ieux  de  la  femmey  et  m^pris  de  lafemme'':  that  is  the  key 
to  the  enigma — it  is  indeed  the  key  in  ninety-nine  such  cases  out 
of  every  hundred. 

The  obedient  lover  flew  to  his  despairing  Countess.  He  had 
promised  to  be  all  and  do  all  that  she  required — and  almost 
immediately  after  his  arrival,  this  was  the  story  he  had  to  tell : — 

"Ravenna,  Dec.  31,  1819. 
"  I  have  been  here  this  week,  and  was  obliged  to  go  the 
night  after  my  arrival  to  the  Marquis  Cavalli's.  .  .  .  The  G.'s 
object  appeared  to  be  to  parade  her  foreign  friend  as  much  as 
possible,  and  faith !  if  she  seemed  to  glory  in  so  doing,  it  was 
not  for  me  to  be  ashamed  of  it.  Nobody  seems  surprised,  all 
the  women,  on  the  contrary,  were,  as  it  were,  delighted  with  the 
excellent  example.  ...  I,  who  had  acted  on  the  reserve,  was 
fairly  obliged  to  take  the  lady  under  my  arm  and  look  as  like  a 
cicisbeo  as  I  could  on  so  short  a  notice.  ...  I  can  understand 
nothing  of  all  this  ;  but  it  seems  as  if  la  G.  had  been  presumed 
to  be  planted^  and  was  determined  to  show  that  she  was  not — 


292  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

plantation,  in  this  atmosphere,  being  the  greatest  moral  mis- 
fortune." 

Can  there  be  any  doubt  that  the  leading  motive  in  this 
display  of  him  was  vanity  ?  Not  so  does  love  act.  He  took 
up  his  quarters  in  the  Guiccioli  Palace,  occupying  a  mag- 
nificent suite  of  apartments  which  he  hired  from  the  Count, 
willing  still  to  make  money  out  of  his  distinguished  friend's 
entanglement — if  not  in  one  way,  then  in  another.  The  affair 
was  now  officially  recognised ;  Byron  was  learning  his  new 
duties,  "  drilling  very  hard  how  to  double  a  shawl  "  ;  and  con- 
soling himself,  as  usual,  for  all  boredoms  by  the  writing  of 
letters.  But  in  January,  he  was  already  saying  to  Hoppner : 
"  I  have  not  decided  anything  about  remaining  at  Ravenna.  .  .  . 
I  came  because  I  was  called,  and  will  go  the  moment  I  see  what 
may  render  my  departure  proper.  My  attachment  has  neither 
the  blindness  of  the  beginning,  nor  the  microscopic  accuracy  of 
the  close  to  such  liaisons  ;  but  '  time  and  the  hour  '  must  decide 
what  I  do." 

Time  and  the  hour  did,  in  a  sense,  decide  it ;  for  this  was 
the  period  of  the  Carbonari  troubles  in  Italy,  and  Byron  was  of 
course  on  the  side  of  the  insurgents.  But  he  happened  to  be 
living  in  the  palace  of  a  nobleman  who  was  profoundly  of  the 
opposite  opinion.  The  Count  took  the  obvious  course  of  request- 
ing his  wife  to  dismiss  her  admirer.  She  refused.  He  professed 
astonishment — "he  had  supposed  the  English  Milord  to  be  his 
friend."  Teresa  laughed  in  his  face.  He  replied  by  threatening 
her  with  a  decree  of  separation,  if  she  did  not  dismiss  Byron.  She 
petitioned  the  Court  for  the  very  thing  with  which  he  threatened 
her ! — and  the  Court  granted  her  plea,  ordered  him  to  return 
her  dowry,  surrender  her  carriage  and  jewels,  and  pay  her  ;^20o 
a  year.  She  was  to  reside  under  her  father's  roof,  or  else  retire  to 
a  cloister.  The  decree  was  published  at  Ravenna  in  the  middle 
of  July,  1820.  Teresa  left  at  once,  and  withdrew  to  her  father's 
villa,  fifteen  miles  outside  the  city.  She  lived  there  for  several 
months,  seeing  Byron  only  about  two  or  three  times  in  the  course 
of  each  month. 

He  remained  in  Ravenna — and  kept  on  his  rooms  at  the 
Guiccioli  Palace!      Freedom  was  not  unwelcome  to  him.     He 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  293 

worked  hard,  rode  daily,  threw  himself  ardently  into  the  Carbo- 
nari movement,  quickly  becoming  the  chief  of  his  division.  The 
movement  collapsed  in  the  early  part  of  1821.  The  Gamba 
family  had  been  active  in  it,  and  four  months  after  its  suppres- 
sion, Teresa's  father  and  brother  were  ordered  to  quit  the  Pope's 
dominions.  This  meant  that  she  must  either  go  with  them,  or 
retire  to  a  convent.  At  the  same  time,  she  heard  that  Guiccioli 
was  in  Rome  persuading  the  authorities  to  insist  upon  her  either 
returning  to  him,  or  going  into  retreat.  She  got  the  news  at  her 
father's  villa,  and  instantly  wrote  to  Byron,  in  Italian,  these  very 
moving  and  significant  words  : 

"  Byron  !  I  am  in  despair  ! — If  I  must  leave  you  here  without 
knowing  when  I  shall  see  you  again,  if  it  is  your  will  that  I 
should  suffer  so  cruelly,  I  am  resolved  to  remain.  They  may 
put  me  in  a  convent ;  I  shall  die — but — but  there  you  cannot 
aid  me,  and  I  cannot  reproach  you.  I  know  not  what  they  tell 
me,  for  my  agitation  overwhelms  me  : — and  why  ?  Not  because 
I  fear  my  present  danger,  but  solely,  I  call  heaven  to  witness, 
solely  because  I  must  leave  you." 

In  what  a  strain  of  almost  confessed  despair  does  she  write  ! 
One  word  ought  to  have  been  enough — and  all  the  imploring 
words  were  not  enough.  Almost  incredible  in  the  reading :  He 
did  not  go  to  Iter — what  can  it  have  been  in  the  living  through  ? 
.  .  .  She  left  her  father's  house  for  Florence,  while  he  remained  in 
the  husband's  palace  at  Ravenna.  He  wrote  to  her  on  the  way 
— once  or  twice. 

On  October  29th,  182 1,  he  left  Ravenna  to  join  her  at  Pisa, 
writing  beforehand  to  Moore  : — "  As  I  could  not  say  with  Hamlet, 
*  Get  thee  to  a  nunnery ',  I  am  preparing  to  follow."  To  her,  he 
wrote,  "  I  set  out  most  unwillingly,  foreseeing  the  most  evil  results 
for  all  of  you,  and  principally  for  yourself.  I  say  no  more,  but 
you  will  see."  And  again  : — "  I  leave  Ravenna  so  unwillingly 
and  with  such  a  persuasion  on  my  mind  that  my  departure  will 
lead  from  one  misery  to  another,  each  greater  than  the  former, 
that  I  have  not  the  heart  to  utter  another  word  on  the  subject." 

Ill-temper  was  the  only  reason  for  these  epistles.  More 
petty,  more  selfish  letters  were  never  written  by  man  to  longing 
woman.     What  she  felt  then,  and  what  she  represented  herself 


294  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

many  years  afterwards,  as  having  felt,  were  assuredly  two  different 
things.  Love  makes  blind,  but  it  also  makes  intuitive ;  and 
women,  from  the  letters  of  the  man  they  love,  breathe  in  almost 
unconsciously  the  atmosphere  of  the  mind  which  dictated  them. 
Byron  could  not  love  a  woman.  That  is  the  simple  truth.  It 
would  be  more  agreeable  to  write  about  him  as  a  friend,  as  a 
comrade,  soldier,  poet — since,  like  the  rest  of  the  world,  we  love 
him  still !  But  it  is  as  a  lover  that  we  must  for  the  hour  regard 
him  ;  and  as  a  lover,  he  drives  us  to  despair.  Femme  cramponne^ 
in  the  terrible  French  phrase — yes,  she  was  that.  But  how 
young  she  was,  and  how  she  loved  him  !  .  .  . 

We  can  imagine  the  days  at  Pisa.  The  Casa  Lanfranchi,  "  a 
famous  old  feudal  palazzo,"  was  infested  with  ghosts,  and  all  the 
servants  were  terrified.  There  were  disagreeables  from  England 
— everything  went  wrong,  and  he  suffered  in  health  accordingly. 
But  there  were  some  compensations.  He  saw  much  of  Shelley  ; 
he  met  Trelawney,  and  quaint  Tom  Medwin  (Jeaffreson's  "  per- 
plexing simpleton ") ;  Goethe  pronounced  favourably  on  Don 
yuan,  made  a  comparison  between  Faust  and  Manfred.  ...  Of 
Teresa  we  hear  nothing.  Man's  love  was  of  man's  life  a  thing 
apart. 

They  went  to  Montenero,  a  suburb  of  Leghorn,  in  May.  But 
plainly  he  was  weary ;  his  spirit  was  on  the  wing.  ...  It  was 
perhaps  as  a  last  device  for  keeping  him  with  her  that  Teresa 
now  gave  him  permission  to  continue  Don  Juan,  which  he  had 
laid  aside  at  her  request ;  but  alas  !  in  a  postscript  to  a  Murray- 
letter,  he  wrote  :  "  I  had,  and  still  have,  thoughts  of  South 
America,  but  am  fluctuating  between  it  and  Greece.  I  should 
have  gone  long  ago  to  one  of  them,  but  for  my  liaison  with  the 
Countess  G." 

Towards  the  end  of  December,  1822,  they  all  removed  to 
Albaro,  a  suburb  of  Genoa,  where  they  lived  at  the  Villa  Saluzzo. 
Things  were  going  ill.  Leigh  Hunt,  who  was  then  living  there 
under  Byron's  patronage,  watched  the  situation,  and  saw  that 
there  was  no  real  love  in  the  business.  "Whilst  he  took  a 
perverse  delight  in  mismanaging  her,  she  did  not  in  the  least 
know  how  to  manage  him  when  he  was  in  the  wrong."  She 
would  nag  at  him  before  others,  and  complain  of  him  behind  his 


TERESA  GAMBA  GUICCIOLI  295 

back.  In  a  few  months,  she  began  to  look  old  and  weary  and 
miserable.  "  It  is  most  likely  that  in  that  interval  she  discovered 
that  she  had  no  real  hold  on  Byron's  affections."  Trelawney, 
Shelley,  Hoppner,  Mrs.  Shelley,  all  thought  the  same.  The  end 
was  near  ;  but  with  his  constant  and  incomparable  glamour, 
Byron  contrived,  in  every  sense  of  the  word,  to  "  do  it  beauti- 
fully." 

He  got  away  to  Greece.  He  had  always  loved  the  country, 
and  now  there  was  a  struggle  for  freedom  there — freedom,  the 
passion  of  his  life,  which  was  so  little  free !  To  be  a  soldier  in 
some  great  cause,  to  win  fame  for  deeds,  not  words,  had  long 
been  his  dream.  He  had  written,  "  If  I  live  ten  years  longer, 
you  will  see  that  it  is  not  over  with  me.  I  don't  mean  in  litera- 
ture, for  that  is  nothing,  and — it  may  seem  odd  enough  to  say  so 
— I  do  not  think  it  was  my  vocation."  .  .  . 

He  went  on  board  the  Hercules^  on  the  night  of  July  13,  1822, 
with  Trelawney,  Pietro  Gamba,  and  others — intending  to  sail  at 
sunrise.  But  on  the  14th,  there  was  not  a  breath  of  wind,  and 
they  had  to  endure  a  day's  delay.  On  the  15th,  at  6  a.m.,  the 
ship  was  towed  out  of  port ;  but  the  calm  continuing,  she  lay  in 
the  offing  all  day.  Towards  midnight,  a  breeze  arose,  the  ship 
rocked  about,  and  the  horses  on  board,  frightened  at  the  motion, 
kicked  down  the  ill-constructed  horse-boxes.  It  was  necessary 
to  put  back  to  port  and  have  them  mended.  The  party  went  on 
shore  for  a  second  time,  and  in  the  evening,  finally  set  sail  for 
Leghorn. 

On  one  of  those  days  he  went  to  the  villa  at  Albaro,  whence 
Teresa  had  that  morning  departed.  Perhaps  he  hoped  to  find 
her  there  when  he  arrived  "  in  the  chill  grey  morning  " — but  the 
house  was  still  and  dark.  A  servant  came  at  last :  "  La  Signora 
^partita''  ...  He  wandered  for  some  time  through  the  empty 
house  ;  then  returned  to  Genoa,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the  day 
with  a  friend — "talking  very  sadly."  In  the  evening  he  re- 
embarked,  and  though  unusually  silent  at  first,  his  spirits  gradually 
rose  till  he  could  say  to  his  most  familiar  comrade,  "  /  am  better 
now  than  I  have  been  for  j/ears." 

He  never  saw  Italy  or  Teresa  Guiccioli  again.  On  the  19th 
of  April,  1823,  he  died  of  fever  at  Missolonghi. 


296  TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI 

The  Marquise  de  Boissy  quotes  in  her  book  two  letters  written 
to  her  from  Greece.  She  thus  describes  them  :  "  They  possessed 
that  ease  and  simplicity  which  not  only  forbade  any  exaggeration 
of  sentiment,  but  even  made  him  restrain  its  expression."  Let 
us  read  them.     This  was  one. 

"  Pray  be  as  cheerful  and  tranquil  as  you  can,  and  be  assured 
that  there  is  nothing  here  that  can  excite  anything  but  a  wish  to 
be  with  you  again."  And  the  other  : — "  You  may  be  sure  that 
the  moment  I  can  join  you  again  will  be  as  welcome  to  me  as  at 
any  period  of  our  acquaintance."  .  .  . 

What  chiefly  surprises  is  her  ever  having  permitted  the  world 
to  know  that  he  could  address  her  in  such  ungracious  fashion. 
The  publishing  of  these  letters  is  a  side-light  upon  the  "  obtuse- 
ness  "  attributed  to  her  by  Leigh  Hunt. 

Let  us  further  quote  from  one  of  her  letters  to  Lady 
Blessington : — 

"  I  am  just  returned  from  Mrs.  Leigh,  Lord  B.'s  sister.  We 
passed  three  hours  together,  always  speaking  of  him.  Mrs. 
Leigh  is  the  most  good-natured  person  in  the  world  ;  and  besides, 
poor  Lord  Byron  was  so  fond  of  her  that  she  is  a  very  interesting 
person  for  me." 

''Poor  Lord  Byron"  .  .  .  there  is  something  about  that 
epithet,  as  applied  to  a  dead  lover,  which  explains  La  Guiccioli 
in  a  flash.  It  even  prepares  us  for  the  fact  that  after  Byron's 
death,  she  returned  to  her  husband's  protection.  After  "  poor  "  (?) 
Guiccioli,  too,  had  died,  she  married  another  elderly  and  still 
richer  French  nobleman — the  Marquis  Hilaire  de  Boissy,  of 
the  new  nobility  of  France.  Of  him  it  is  related  that  he 
never  introduced  her  to  anybody  except  in  these  words  :  "  La 
Marquise  de  Boissy,  ma  femme — ci-devant  rnaitresse  de  Lord 
Byron"  .  .  . 

Almost  the  only  fragment  of  her  conversation  which  we 
possess  is  quoted  by  Mrs.  Crawford  in  an  article  in  The  Reader 
for  November,  1906.  She  was  close  on  seventy.  Her  companion 
was  the  Due  de  Persigny ;  it  took  place  before  her  second 
husband's  death. 

"  How  is  the  Marquis  to-day  .?  I  was  very  sorry  to  hear  that 
his  health  was  still  uncertain." 


TERESA   GAMBA   GUICCIOLI  297 

"  Always,  dear  Duke ;  and  the  idea  of  being  soon  obliged  to 
look  for  another  husband  appals  me." 

"You  must  not  look  at  that  so  pessimistically.  You  will 
always  have  only  too  many  to  choose  from." 

"  Unhappily  at  my  age  one  cannot  always  choose." 

"  I  dare  not,  Marquise,  inquire  of  you  your  age ! " 

"  Tai  Vdge  de  ma  chevelure^  cher  due'' 

The  duke  answered,  as  in  duty  bound,  that  her  chevehire  was 
the  youngest  and  prettiest  in  France. 

"The  compliment  may  have  been  sincere,"  remarks  Mrs. 
Crawford.  "  Her  even  temper  and  a  fortune  that  sheltered 
her  from  every  rough  wind  that  blew  enabled  her  to  take  life 
easily."  .  .  . 

"  Ah  !     Love  what  is  it,  in  this  world  of  ours, 
Which  makes  it  fatal  to  be  loved."  .  .  . 

Byron  need  not  have  wept,  with  foreboding  for  her  fate,  in 
the  garden  at  Ravenna. 


EVELINA    HANSKA 

1804-6— 1882 

A  BEAUTIFUL  unhappy  lady,  imprisoned,  like  any  fairy- 
tale Princess,  in  a  great  desolate  castle  in  Ukraine,  sat 
down  one  day,  with  fire  in  her  heart,  to  write  a  letter  to 
Paris.  The  letter  was  for  a  man  whom  she  had  never  seen,  but 
to  whom  she  owed  the  great  solace  of  her  existence.  He  was  a 
writer  of  novels,  and  she  had  read — she  had  devoured ! — every- 
thing that  he  had  published.  Sometimes  he  wrote  exquisitely, 
sometimes  brutally.  There  had  been  the  Physiologic  du  Mariage, 
for  example :  how  cynical,  sceptical,  ironical !  She  had  not  liked 
it,  but  she  had  enjoyed  it.  After  all,  marriage — Her  marriage, 
for  instance  ?  Still,  there  were  things  of  which  it  was  better  not 
to  speak.  .  .  .  And  then  had  come— almost  as  if  to  mollify  the 
sex  which  in  those  days  was  secretive ! — the  heavenly-pure  and 
tender  Scenes  de  la  Vie  Priv^e,  where  women  were  exalted  to 
the  skies,  where  life  was  reduced  to  an  exquisite  triple-essence 
of  delicate  feeling.  What  might  not  be  looked  for  after  this — 
something  mystic,  etiolated,  almost  unearthly  in  its  exaltation  ? 
And  so,  when  the  next  book  by  Honor^  de  Balzac  was 
announced — was  ordered — arrived — we  can  imagine  the  eager- 
ness with  which  the  lady  untied  her  parcel  from  Paris.  La  Peau 
de  Chagrin  :  The  Wild  Ass  s  Skin.  A  disquieting  title,  but  one 
may  not  judge  by  titles.  .  .  .  She  opened  the  book.  A  scene 
in  a  gambling-hell ;  further  on,  a  scene  in — something  worse. 
Quelle  horreur\  She  read  on  greedily:  the  talk  of  those  amazing 
young  men,  the  cynicism  and  blague  and  sentimentality,  all  mixed 
up  together.  .  .  .  No  wonder  all  the  world  was  talking  of  Peau  de 
Chagrin !  But  then,  the  tension  over,  the  book  at  last  laid 
down,  our  pretty  lady  remembered  her  disappointment.     It  was 

298 


EVELINA   HANSKA  299 

to  have  been  a  white  flower  !  Which  was  the  real  man — sceptic 
or  poet  ?  She  must  find  out ;  she  must  approach  him  somehow. 
Strange,  that  the  impulse  should  be  unconquerable  now,  when 
one  had  liked  the  book  much  less — but  that  was  anxiety,  no 
doubt :  for  so  superb  a  talent  must  not  be  allowed  to  spend  itself 
on  vilenesses.     She  would  write  an  anonymous  letter  to  him  ! 

So  it  was  that  on  February  28th,  1832,  Balzac  received  the 
first  letter  of  Evelina  Hanska — '' L' Etrang^re" — the  woman 
whom  he  was  to  love  devotedly  for  seventeen  years,  and  then, 
at  last,  to  marry. 


He  had  just  won  success,  and  he  had  struggled  desperately 
for  it.  He  was  inordinately  vain — in  the  big-hearted,  expansive, 
lovable  way — and  his  vanity  hitherto  had  seemed  merely  another 
means  whereby  the  world  might  wound,  might  disappoint  him. 
Now  at  last  there  came  the  glory  and  the  joy — the  light  that 
never  was  on  sea  or  land.  The  Physiologie  du  Manage  had 
awakened  the  public.  Passionate  discussions  had  raged.  Women 
"  hated  "  it,  and  though  to  be  hated  is  a  step  towards  renown,  he 
had  resolved  to  have  the  women  on  his  side  next  time,  for  Balzac 
could  not  live  without  their  sympathy — motherly,  sisterly,  or 
mistressly.  And,  so  the  Schies  de  la  Vie  Privee  (a  few  of  the 
tales  only  which  now  stand  in  La  Comidie  Humaine)  had 
embalmed  the  air — and  the  women  had  "adored"  them.  His 
future  was  assured.  Editors  were  fighting  for  him,  he  was  taking 
much  more  work  than  he  could  possibly  accomplish.  It  was 
Success,  redoubled  by  the  "boom"  which  devastated  Europe 
when  Peau  de  Chagrin  appeared.  ...  One  might  have  supposed 
that  in  such  a  flowing  tide,  Evelina  Hanska's  little  letter  would 
have  floated  by  almost  unnoticed.  But  Destiny  had  spoken : 
that  little  letter — which  no  longer  exists,  which  indeed  was  never 
found  by  all  its  eager  searchers — was  the  great  event  of  Honor^ 
de  Balzac's  life.  It  was  signed  L Etranghe,  and  the  postmark 
was  Odessa ;  she  had  sent  it  to  the  care  of  his  publishers : 
Librairie  Gosselin,  Paris — and  he,  inured  to  the  anonymous 
admirer's  letter,  had  opened  it  in  gay,  vain  heedlessness.  .  .  . 
Thus  do  the  wonderful  things  happen  ! 


300  EVELINA   HANSKA 

He  was  thirty-three,  and  she,  twenty-six  or   twenty-seven  ; 
he  was  unmarried,  and  she  was  a  wife  of  ten  years'  standing, 
with  one  daughter,  Anna,  left   of  five  children   born.     Evelina 
Rzewuska,  the  daughter  of  a  great  but   needy  Polish  family, 
had  been  one  of  a  numerous  progeny,  and  early  in  life  she  had 
realised  that  her  part  in   it  was  to  marry  "well".     Wenceslas 
Hanski,  twenty-five  years  her  senior,  but  enormously  rich,  with 
an  enormous  castle  and  an  enormous  estate  in  Ukraine,  repre- 
sented the  incarnation  of  that  idea  ;  and  seventeen-year-old  Eve 
submitted.    Life  proved  solitary,  irksome,  empty — except  for  one 
thing,  her  little  daughter  Anna.     Her,  the  mother  worshipped : 
her,  the  mother  never  left  from  the  day  of  her  birth  to  the  day 
of  her  marriage.     It  was  really  the  love  of  her  life  ;  but  Countess 
Eve  was  cultured,  lonely — and  romantic.     Literature  of  all  the 
arts  she  cared  for  most.     Expression,  expression !     Its  spell  for 
lonely  women  lies  in  that  word.      Creation  the  Countess  Eves 
are  not  so  much  concerned  with  ;  they  have  their  own  creating 
to   do — but   expression,   self-expression,   that   is    the   yearning. 
First  vicariously,  through  reading :  then,  actually,  through  writing 
in  one  form  or  another.  ...  So  it  came  about ;  so  the  letter  was 
composed.      A  pity  we  have  not  the  first,  the  epoch-making! 
For  the  two  we  have  are  not  convincing.     How  came  the  first, 
unless  it  was  widely  different,  to  stand  out  from  the  flood  ?     "  I 
should  like  to  know  you,  and  yet  I  feel  I  need  not,  for  a  deep 
instinct  makes  me  guess  what  you   are  like.     I  imagine  your 
appearance   to    myself,  and    I    should  say  That's  he,  if  I  saw 
you."  .  .  .     Surely   most   of    us   could   write   like  that!      The 
mysterious  attraction  seems  all  the  more  "  fatal "  when  we  learn 
that,  on  the  very  day  that  Balzac  got  the  first  letter,  he  wrote 
his  first  one  to  the  Marquise  de   Castries,  another  anonymous 
correspondent   who    had   written    in    September,    183 1,   to   say 
exactly  the  same  things  which  Evelina  Hanska  now  said !     She 
was  a  Botticellian  exquisite ;  and  she  had  the  advantage  of  being 
on  the  spot.     She  soon  dropped  her  anonymity  and  summoned 
Balzac  to  her  salon  in  the  Rue  de  Varenne.    He  went,  and  it  was 
not  long  before  he  fell  madly  in  love.     But  the  Marquise  tired  of 
him  quickly.     He  put  her  into  a  book  later  on — a  bitter  angry 
book:  La   Duchesse  de   Langeais.      "Eminently   a   woman  and 


EVELINA   HANSKA  301 

essentially  a  coquette,  Parisian  to  the  core,  loving  the  brilliancy 
of  the  world."  .  .  .  And  in  Armand  de  Montriveau,  he  described 
himself :  his  abundant  black  hair,  his  virile  bearing,  "  the  inward 
ardour  which  shone  out  through  his  tranquil  features.  He  seemed 
aware  that  nothing  could  oppose  his  will — possibly  because  he 
willed  only  what  was  right."  .  .  .  Soon  enough,  whatever  he 
willed,  Balzac  found  his  life  in  a  tangle.  A  marriage  had  been 
arranged  for  him  (it  never  came  off)  :  he  was  dutifully  wooing 
the  suggested  bride  ;  the  Marquise  de  Castries  had  been  cruel ; 
Madame  de  Berny,  the  friend  of  his  youth,  the  woman  twenty 
years  older  than  himself,  who  had  loved  him  and  drudged  for 
him  and  watched  over  him,  was  heroically  sacrificing  herself  to 
his  future,  and  acquiescing  in  the  attitude  of  a  "friend".  She 
knew  it  must  be,  and  Balzac  knew  it  too  ;  but  his  big  tender  heart 
was  troubled,  and  Madame  de  Castries  had  made  him  realise 
only  too  well  what  the  other  woman  must  be  enduring.  Quelle 
vie,  quelle  vie !  And  all  the  copy  to  be  turned  out,  too,  and  all 
the  debts  to  be  paid.  .  .  .  Those  debts  were  never  paid  ;  his  life 
long,  Balzac  knew  no  rest  from  creditors.  But  on  he  went 
stumbling — broken  sometimes  in  health  and  hope,  then  again 
all  confidence  and  looking- forward :  "  in  six  months  I  shall  be 
free "  :  always  ardent  and  intense  and  excitable,  laughing, 
weeping,  working  as  no  human  being  ever  worked  before, 
"  fifteen  hours  at  a  stretch,"  killing  himself  with  coffee,  with 
lack  of  sleep,  with  violent  emotions — getting  into  publishers'  and 
editors'  black  books,  getting  into  lawsuits,  into  love-affairs ; 
"  rushing  through  life  irresponsibly,  like  a  mad  bull  or  a  runaway 
motor-car,"     (How  he  would  have  enjoyed  a  motor-car !) 

With  UEtranghrds  letter,  there  had  sprung  up  a  fresh  com- 
plication, for  it  had  gone  right  home,  with  its  reproaches  and  its 
pleadings.  And  the  Contes  Drolatiques  were  just  coming  out ! 
Unhappy  author,  for  he  could  not  answer  the  letter — there  was 
no  address,  no  name.  If  he  could  but  explain  about  those  Contes ! 
The  letter  obsessed  him.  He  talked  of  it  to  his  friends :  never 
was  one  like  it.  Then,  all  of  a  sudden,  he  shut  up  like  an 
oyster :  it  was  as  if  it  had  never  been.  He  shut  up,  no  doubt, 
because  a  method  of  communication  had  been  established — by 
the  lady.     "  A  word  from  you  in  the  Quotidienne  will  give  me 


302  EVELINA   HANSKA 

the  assurance  that  you  have  received  my  letter,  and  that  I  can 
write  to  you  without  uneasiness.     Sign  it  A  UE — h.  B." 

Thus  was  inaugurated  our  modern  Agony  Column — for  banal 
as  this  arrangement  now  appears,  it  was  highly  original  in  those 
days,  and  her  choice  of  it  serves,  with  the  rest,  to  prove  that 
Evelina  Hanska  was  a  remarkable  woman. 

Balzac  answered  in  the  Quotidienne  for  December  9th,  1832 
(so  it  was  nearly  a  year  since  the  first  letter),  and  the  announce- 
ment was  printed  as  the  last  f ait-divers.  "  M.  de  B.  has  received 
the  letter ;  only  to-day  has  he  been  enabled  to  acknowledge  it 
by  this  paper ;  he  regrets  that  he  does  not  know  where  to 
address  his  reply  !  A  VE — H.  de  B  ".  (Punctilious  always  for 
that  "  de"  to  which  he  had  no  right  at  all !)  All  the  advertise- 
ments and  notices  of  his  books  were  thenceforth  inserted  in  the 
Quotidienne ;  the  letters  continued  to  come — something  else 
came  too,  and  made  a  miracle.  He  was  an  ardent  believer  in 
transmission  of  thought,  suggestion,  magnetism — all  that  we  now 
class  together  as  telepathy  :  a  singular  belief  at  that  time,  but 
Balzac  was  ahead  of  his  age,  because  he  was  so  observantly  of 
it.  That  is  the  mark  of  great  imagination,  is  it  not  ?  to  stand  in 
the  midst  and  see.  .  .  .  Well !  he  was  just  beginning  his  Medecin 
de  Campagne,  when  one  day  there  arrived  from  far  Ukraine  a 
little  morocco-bound  volume  :  The  Imitation  of  Christ.  And  in 
this  new  work,  he  was  "trying"  (as  he  wrote  at  once)  "to 
dramatise  the  spirit  of  the  Imitation  by  bringing  it  into  harmony 
with  our  own  time."  ..."  How  did  it  happen — how  are  such 
things  to  be  explained  t "  he  cries,  with  all  the  joy  of  a  fanatic. 
"  Except  in  that  way  !  "  And  of  course,  as  all  lovers  know,  there 
was  no  other  possible  explanation.  .  .  .  Lovers  ?  Yes — he  at 
any  rate  was  avowedly  that.  In  this  letter,  written  just  a  year 
after  her  first  had  reached  him,  he  speaks  plainly :  "  I  love  you, 
stranger  though  you  are ;  and  this  odd  happening  is  only  the 
natural  result  of  an  ever  empty  and  unhappy  life,  which  I  have 
filled  with  ideas  alone.  If  such  an  adventure  were  to  come  to 
anyone,  it  was  bound  to  come  to  me.  I  am  like  a  prisoner  who, 
in  the  darkness  of  his  cell,  hears  an  exquisite  woman's  voice.  .  .  . 
Promise  me  that  you  won't  write  to  anyone  in  Paris  except  me ! " — 
and  he  implores  her  to  send  him  a  sketch  of  her  own,  own  room. 


EVELINA   HANSKA  303 

Ah!  surely  the  very  maddest  dream  of  romance  is  such  a 
correspondence.  "A  fairy-tale!  Only— I  feel  it."  And  is  it 
any  realler  than  the  Natural  Magic  of  which  Browning  wrote  ? 
Who  can  tell,  for  who  can  ever  know  ?  Did  Balzac  ever  see  his 
"  Predilecta  " — no  !  he  came  to  her  more  blind  than  even  seeing 
lover  I  She  saw  him — for  she  was  the  loved  one,  not  the  lover. 
.  .  .  Few  stranger  stories  there  are  than  this.  Vowed  to  one 
another,  as  it  were,  beforehand  ;  crossing  frontiers  to  meet,  and, 
meeting,  separated  in  five  days,  yet  lovers  already  (for  the  tu  in 
his  letters  after  the  stay  at  Neufchatel  confesses  all  to  French- 
trained  ears) — how  was  it,  truly,  with  them  both }  Did  not  the 
very  romance  impair  the  romance }  Was  there  not  a  sense  of 
obligation — of  the  desirability,  at  any  rate,  of  "  acting-up."  .  .  . 
Let  us  not  analyse  too  closely.  His,  at  any  rate,  was  a  passionate 
and  unalterable  devotion.  He  was  ready  for  true  love — ready 
and  desirous.  Madame  de  Castries  had  struck  and  wounded, 
Madame  de  Berny  was  a  shadow  on  the  heart,  other  distractions 
were  too  easy,  he  was  satiated  with  la  vie  de  boulevard  \  and 
Evelina  Hanska  was  not  only  cultured,  not  only  intelligent,  not 
only  high-born,  not  only  rich,  but  strikingly  beautiful  as  well. 
Good  Heavens,  what  could  a  man  want  more ! 

But  her  feelings — but  hers  ?  Is  that  so  easy }  Very  certainly 
the  story  does  not  say  so.  The  story,  when  the  serious  issue 
came,  when  Marriage  loomed  before  her,  may  be  summed  up  in 
one  word :  hesitation.  It  would  seem  that  before  the  first  great 
step  there  was  no  hesitation,  and  that  might  be  stranger  still  if 
she  had  ever  hitherto  known  any  joy  in  life.  But  she  had  not. 
Her  husband  was  pompous,  dull,  and  selfish ;  she  had  done  her 
duty  as  a  wife,  had  borne  him  five  children,  had  pined  in  the  far 
cold  country,  and  made  no  moan.  .  .  .  And  now  !  First  the 
wonderful  books,  next  the  wonderful  letters,  last — the  wonderful 
man.  .  .  .  How  had  it  been  when  she  first  saw  him  in  Neufchatel 
on  September  26th,  1833  .^ 

The  Hanski  family  were  at  Villa  Andri^,  opposite  the  H6tel 
du  Faubourg,  where  Balzac  stayed.  He  had  alighted  at  the 
Hotel  du  Faucon,  but  behold !  there  was  a  note  waiting  which 
ordered  him  to  be  on  the  Promenade  du  Faubourg  next  day 
from  one  to  four,  and  he  then  removed  himself  to  the  Faubourg 


304  EVELINA    HANSKA 

Hotel,  which  faced  the  doors  of  Paradise  —  otherwise,  Villa 
Andri^.  And  remember  that,  as  yet,  he  did  not  know  her  whole 
name  !  .  .  .  How  did  they  meet  ?  We  have  no  information,  and 
such  moments  baffle  the  fancy.  For  her,  it  was  easy  enough : 
beautiful,  exquisitely  dressed,  The  Sought !  But  for  him  ?  "  A 
small,  fat,  inelegant  person."  .  .  .  The  thought  of  her  first  glance 
must  have  daunted  him  a  little }  No !  staunch  Romantic  that 
he  was,  Balzac  would  have  borne  up  bravely,  even  in  imagination. 
And  then,  his  genius !  And,  since  genius  is  not  of  the  things 
which  "show",  perhaps  he  thought  reassuringly  of  his  eyes. 
(For  he  had  reckoned  up  all  his  points  long  since,  when  he  drew 
Armand  de  Montriveau.)  His  eyes  were  "incomparable", 
Th^ophile  Gautier  said.  Brilliant,  piercing — "eyes  of  a  sove- 
reign, a  seer,  a  conqueror "  ;  "  like  black  diamonds,  with  rich 
reflections  of  gold,  the  whole  of  the  eyeball  tinged  with  blue." 
Yet  soft  and  lambent  too,  eyes  that  could  brood  and  plead  as 
well  as  dominate.  .  .  .  Much  consolation  for  Balzac  in  his  eyes ! 

One  account  says  that  Madame  Hanska  had  a  novel  of  his  in 
her  hand,  and  rushed  to  meet  him,  and  that  all  they  said  was 
"  Eve  ! "  and  "  Honor^  "  —  but  this  seems  a  little  over-glib. 
Christian  names  do  not  jump  so  quickly  to  the  lips,  whatever 
they  may  have  been  doing  to  the  pens.  .  .  .  Another  version  is 
that  Eve  was  bitterly  disappointed,  and  drew  back  a  little — not 
yet  seeing  the  eyes  and  the  genius.  Evidently,  when  she  saw 
these,  they  made  her  forget  all  else  ;  for  Balzac's  visit  lasted  only 
five  days,  and,  as  we  have  said,  his  letters  afterwards  are  those  of 
an  accepted,  a  successful  lover.  "  Ma  chere  spouse  d' amour  .  .  . 
je  fat  vuey  je  fai  parle ;  nos  corps  ont  fait  alliance  contme  nos 
dmes.  ..."  Little  room  for  doubt,  is  there  }  that  the  eyes  and 
the  genius  had  done  their  work  ;  the  eyes  and  the  genius — and 
the  Romantic  Situation ! 

But  six  days  later,  Balzac  wrote  a  letter  to  his  sister — in  the 
circumstances,  his  only  possible  confidante  ;  and,  sadly  we  say  it, 
it  is  a  letter  which  we  think  he  ought  to  have  torn  into  a  hundred 
pieces,  with  a  blush  for  every  piece.  Here  it  is  :  "  There  I  found 
all  that  can  flatter  the  thousand  vanities  of  that  animal  called 
Man — and  of  a  Poet,  the  vainest  of  them  all !  But  why  do  I  talk 
of  vanity  !     There  is  no  such  thing  here.     I   am  happy,  very 


EVELINA    HANSKA  305 

happy  in  my  thoughts,  en  tout  Men,  tout  honneur  encore.  .  .  .  The 
essential  is  that  we  are  twenty-seven,  that  we  are  ravishingly 
beautiful,  that  we  have  the  finest  black  hair  in  the  world,  the 
deliciously  smooth  fine  skin  of  a  brunette,  an  adorable  little 
hand,  a  twenty-seven-year-old  heart,  all  innocent :  in  short,  we 
are  a  real  Madame  de  Lignelle,  and  so  imprudent  that  we  throw 
ourselves  into  my  arms  in  public ! 

"  I  do  not  speak  of  the  colossal  riches :  what  are  they  when 
compared  with  a  masterpiece  of  beauty  which  I  can  only  compare 
to  the  Princesse  de  Bellejoyeuse,  only  ever  so  much  better.  .  .  . 
In  the  shade  of  a  great  oak  we  gave  one  another  the  furtive, 
earliest  kiss  of  love !  Then,  I  swore  to  wait^  and  she,  to  keep 
for  me  her  hand,  her  heart !  " 

We  do  not  like  it.  But  it  would  seem  that  a  victorious 
lover's  letters  to  a  third  person  ought  never  to  be  written. 
Having  been  written,  they  ought  never  to  be  sent.  Having  been 
sent,  they  ought  never  to  be  kept.  Having  been  kept — we  must 
read  them  !  But  women  would  do  well  to  resist  the  temptation. 
It  brings  its  punishment  with  it — a  punishment  which  needs  no 
definition. 


And  then  }  Another  meeting  at  Christmas-time  of  the  same 
year — a  six-weeks'  meeting  this  time,  and  a  definite  promise  of 
marriage  if  she  were  ever  free  ;  then,  more  letters  and  new  names 
of  love :  "  Sublime  Queen,  Autocrat  of  hearts.  Rose  of  the  West, 
Star  of  the  North,  etc.,  etc.,  etc." — and  jealousies  and  gronderies 
from  her,  for  she  used  that  weapon  incessantly.  "  Why  do  you 
trample  all  the  hopes  of  our  lives  under  foot  with  one  word  } " 
he  cries.  "  Why  do  you  say  again  the  things  that  you  once  wrote, 
once  said.  .  .  .  Oh,  my  love,  you  play  very  lightly  with  a  life 
which  you  desired  for  your  own,  and  which  has  been  given  you 
with  whole-hearted  devotion."  .  .  .  Pegasus  in  Harness,  truly ! 
for  she  idled  him  as  well  as  tortured  him  ;  but,  "  I  accept  all 
sufferings  so  long  as  I  can  see  you — for  indeed  you  wounded  me 
yesterday."  .  .  .  This  note  recurs  frequently.  "  I  will  do  what 
you  desire,"  he  writes  again.  "  I  will  go  nowhere.  ...  I  am  so 
ill  that  I  don't  know  what  can  be  the  matter  with  me."     So  it 

X 


S06  EVELINA   HANSKA 

went ;  and  then  she  would  write  kindly,  and  all,  all  was  forgotten 
by  the  big,  generous  heart :  "  My  God !  shall  I  never  make  you 
realise  how  I  love  you,  my  Eve ! " 

He  had  made  her  realise  too  well. 

In  1835,  a  meeting  at  Vienna,  and  more  anger,  because  he 
worked  twelve  hours  a  day  at  Z^  Lys  dans  la  ValUe.  It  was  a 
sad  year  for  him ;  all  his  family  were  in  trouble  in  one  way  or 
another,  Madame  de  Berny  was  dying,  money-troubles  were 
worse  than  ever :  "  Calumnies  have  ruined  my  credit :  the  whole 
world  has  fallen  on  my  head.  ...  I  am  working  twenty-four 
hours  on  end.  Lassitude,  effort,  strain,  headaches,  worries — here 
is  an  epitome  of  what  goes  on  between  the  four  walls  of  that 
white-and-pink  room  which  you  know  from  the  description  in  La 
Fille  aux  Yeux  (Tor.  And  all  I  have  to  console  me  in  these  labours 
is  a  far-away  affection  which  is  vexed,  at  Ischl,  about  a  silly  word 
in  a  letter  while  I  was  in  Vienna ;  and  the  prospect  of  going  to 
Wierzchowna  and  being  cruelly  treated  when,  in  seven  or  eight 
months  from  now,  I  shall  be  almost  dying  from  nervous  strain. 
I  might  quote  that  General  who  said,  '  Many  such  victories,  and 
I  shall  succumb  ! '  "  This  was  a  real  quarrel.  He  even  questions 
her  literary  taste — about  the  only  weapon  he  had  left  himself! 
The  vous  is  used  all  through ;  and  the  misunderstanding  lasted 
long.  Many,  many  letters  there  are,  all  full  of  wounded  feeling, 
and  more  and  more  depressed,  for  troubles  were  heaped  on 
troubles.  "  Ohy  pour  le  coup^  trop  est  trop ! "  And  she  has 
written  about  gossip  heard  through  her  aunt — and  he  cries 
out  in  bitter,  deep  reproach :  "  Your  letter  has  broken  me 
down."  .  .  .  One's  heart  aches  for  the  weary  Titan.  She  might 
have  comforted,  might  have  cheered  him  ;  instead,  she  played 
the  sanctioned  "  woman's  "  game.  "  OA,  chkre,  quelle  vie  !  Do  not 
aggravate  my  misery  by  dishonouring  doubts.  I  cannot  under- 
stand you!"  .  .  .  Thus,  the  bad  year  1835-6  drew  to  an  end, 
with,  "  There  are  phrases  in  your  letter  which  stab  my  heart  .  .  . 
but  you  don't  know  how  sad  I  am.  Must  I  give  up  going  to  the 
Italian  Opera  "  (he  passionately  loved  music),  "  the  only  pleasure 
I  have  in  Paris,  because  I  have  no  seat  but  one  in  a  box  with  a 
charming  and  gracious  woman  }  If  calumny  exacts  that  too,  I 
shall  give  up  music  also.  .  .  .  But  let  us  drop  this  subject.     La 


EVELINA    HANSKA  307 

vie  de  Vdme  n'est  pas  cela!'    Just  that  gentle  rebuke  he  makes 
her! 


In  January,  1842 — seven  years  after  he  had  last  seen  her  in 
Vienna — arrived  a  black-edged  envelope.  Its  enclosure  announced 
M.  Hanska's  death.  At  once  Balzac  wrote  off— a  sympathetic, 
ardent,  noble  letter.  "  As  for  me,  my  adored  one,  though  this 
event  brings  nearer  what  I  have  ardently  desired  for  almost  ten 
years,  I  can,  before  you  and  God,  do  myself  the  justice  to  say 
that  my  heart  has  been  utterly  submissive.  .  .  .  Involuntary, 
inevitable  impulses  there  have  been.  I  have  often  said  to 
myself,  *  How  sweet  life  would  be  with  her ! ' — for  one's  faith, 
one's  heart,  one's  whole  spiritual  being,  cannot  live  without  hope. 
.  .  .  Nothing  in  me  is  changed.  You  once  said,  *  Be  patient. 
You  are  loved  as  you  love.  Do  not  change  ;  there  will  be  no 
change  here.'  .  .  .  Well,  we  have  both  been  brave.  Why  should 
you  not  be  happy  now  .?  .  .  .  I  should  have  liked  two  words  for 
myself  in  this  letter }  and  I  have  looked  for  them  in  vain.  Ah ! 
dearest,  you  have  said  so  much  to  bid  me  keep  away  ...  by 
now,  you  will  have  realised  how  hard  it  is  to  stay  in  Paris  when 
I  have  longed  for  six  years  to  see  you.  Oh  !  write  and  say  you 
will  be  wholly  mine  !  " 

He  had  read  her  letter  with  the  prescience  of  the  lover. 
From  that  day,  began  the  long  cruel  hesitation  which  helped, 
with  all  the  rest,  to  kill  him.  First,  it  was  the  daughter  Anna 
who  came  between.  "  Alas  ! "  he  writes,  "  Anna  has  only  had  my 
second  thoughts,  you  see ;  and  /  see  that  I  have  not  even  had  the 
second  thoughts  from  you.  But  I  love  you  so — perhaps  I  am 
unjust.?  Tell  me  that  my  complaint  is  unjust!"  She  did  not 
tell  him  that,  for  she  could  not.  Then  the  "  terrible  aunt,"  as  he 
calls  her,  interfered  once  more.  Eve  must  not  go  to  Paris  : 
Paris  jamais,  decreed  the  aunt.  In  the  same  letter,  what  does 
his  "  Dear  Star  "  write  with  glacial  tranquillity :  Yoti  are  free. 
..."  I  could  never  have  invented  this  disaster,"  comes  his  cry. 
"  You  use  your  daughter  as  a  weapon  against  me  I  If  my  poor 
child  were  taken  from  me,  I  should  die,  you  write.  Could  you 
more  plainly  say  *  Your  affection  would  not  make  life  sweet  to 


308  EVELINA   HANSKA 

me ' ! "  And  the  old  refrain  going  on  all  the  time  of  jealousy 
jealousy!  She  will  not  believe  in  his  vie  de  travail^  and  he 
exhausts  himself  in  detailed  proofs  of  work  and  weary  nights  and 
days,  till  "it  makes  me  ashamed  for  your  intelligence."  .  .  . 
At  last,  in  July,  1843,  she  allowed  him  to  come  to  St.  Peters 
burg  and  see  her.  He  was  at  once  utterly  happy.  "  She  is  as 
young  and  as  lovely  as  ever,  though  it's  seven  years  since  I've  seen 
her.'*  He  wrote  daily  notes  :  "  Never  in  my  life  have  I  been 
gladder  to  live,  never  have  I  waked  to  such  joyous  mornings." 
He  would  gaze  at  her,  enraptured  :  the  black  hair,  the  white  arms 
and  hands,  the  wonderful  forehead — "  your  analytical  forehead,'' 
as  he  loved  to  call  it.  .  .  .  But  then  he  had  to  go,  and  then  the 
tortures  recommenced,  for  nothing  definite  had  been  said.  "  She 
must  settle  Anna  with  a  husband  first."  That  seemed  imminent 
in  1844.  A  Count  Georges  Mniszech  appeared — most  eligible. 
Balzac  was  keenly  interested,  but  nothing  must  be  done  in  a 
hurry,  he  said,  forgetting  his  own  trouble.  .  .  .  Then  came  a 
terrible  fresh  blow.  Eve  was  at  Dresden,  whither  he  had  been 
told  he  might  go  to  meet  her.  All  at  once  arrived  a  letter 
putting  him  off,  forbidding  him  even  to  write.  Some  "terrible 
aunt "  again !  Nor  might  he  protest.  She  fulminated  horri- 
fically :  "  he  was  impatient  and  overbearing."  .  .  .  But  in  April, 
1845,  he  was  at  length  permitted  to  go,  and  instantly  rushed 
off  to  bliss.  Anna  and  "  George  '*  were  now  engaged,  and  the 
whole  party  came  to  Paris  for  a  while.  Here  was  Paradise 
indeed !  His  joyous  excitement  knew  no  bitter  remembrance  : 
they  were  in  Paris  and  he  could  show  his  Star  everything — 
his  treasures  in  china,  marble,  his  pictures,  his  Renaissance 
furniture  ...  for  Balzac  was  a  collector  of  the  first  rank. 
Then  Baden-Baden  together  ;  then  Italy.  The  work  had  to  get 
itself  done  as  it  could.  Pictures,  and  curiosity-shops — those 
glorious  ones  at  Marseilles ! — and  Eve.  ...  It  was  the  year  of 
his  life. 


But  no  work  had  been  done  in  that  Annus  Mirabilis,  and, 
worst  of  all,  his  health  was  breaking  down.  Colds,  neuralgia, 
terrible  pains  in  the  side.  .  .  ,   Suspense,  moreover,  for  all  the 


MADAME   EVELINA   HANSKA 

FROM    A    BUST    IN    THE    POSSESSION   OF    MONSIEUR    LAI'RET,    I'ARIS 


EVELINA   HANSKA  309 

excited  joy  in  meetings,  waited  like  a  spectre  to  haunt  the 
partings — for  once  away  from  him,  her  cruel  letters  would  always 
recommence.  Incomprehensible  the  woman  is  !  Cruelty  such  as 
hers  has  rarely  been  dealt  to  even  tenderest  lover.  Was  she 
only  undecided  ?  In  all  else,  her  will  was  strong  and  calm.  The 
truth  must  have  been  that  love — if  it  had  ever  really  been  at  all 
— had  died  utterly  in  Evelina  Hanska's  heart.  Was  it  vanity 
alone  then  that  made  her  keep  him  tied  to  her  ?  Was  it  a  kind 
of  fear  ?  a  kind  of  compassion  .?  .  .  .  In  1846,  they  met  in  Rome, 
and  once  more  all  seemed  hopeful.  Anna  was  soon  to  be  married. 
Balzac  was  allowed  to  buy  furniture  and  bric-a-brac  for  the  future 
home  in  Paris — and  with  the  renewed  hope,  came  the  revived 
health,  "  el  le  talent — oh  !  je  Vai  retrouvi  dans  sajleur  !  "  In  the 
same  year,  the  innocent  marplot  Anna  was  married  at  last.  Now 
.  .  .  nowl  But  she  insisted  on  going  on  the  honeymoon  with 
the  bride  and  bridegroom  !  Balzac's  agony  of  suspense  turned  to 
despair.  And  somebody  said,  half-warningly,  that  "it  was  all 
vanity  and  pride,  that  this  high-born  woman  was  only  playing 
with  her  man  of  genius."  He  wrote  and  made  a  joke  of  it — but 
there  must  have  been  some  terror  behind  his  laugh.  .  .  .  He  had 
found  a  house,  however,  in  the  Rue  Fortunee  *  (a  good  omen ! ) 
and  was  furnishing  it  divinely :  Watteau  tea-services,  priceless 
glaze-vases,  gilt  crystal  candle-ornaments.  .  .  .  And  in  1847,  she 
came  to  Paris !  At  last,  peace  stole  into  his  heart :  he  actually 
got  some  work  done,  some  debts  paid,  and  after  she  was  gone,  he 
moved  into  the  house  in  the  Rue  Fortunee.  This  was  indeed 
a  foretaste  of  the  great  reality. 

But  just  then  an  appalling  thing  happened.  The  lock  of  his 
treasure-casket  was  forced,  and  her  letters  were  stolen.  Blackmail 
-—the  last  stroke  of  ill-fortune !  The  thief  demanded  30,CXX) 
francs  :  else  the  letters  would  be  sent  to  the  Czar.  ...  He 
managed  to  frighten  the  creature,  to  get  them  back — but  the 
awful  hours  had  utterly  unnerved  him.  He  was  far  advanced  in 
heart-disease,  and  he  felt  that  he  could  not  face  another  such 
horror.     He  burnt  all  the  cherished  letters. 

Towards  the   end   of  the   year,   he   got   off  to   see   her   at 
Wierzchowna.     He  travelled  for  a  week  without  stopping,  and 
*  Now  Rue  Balzac. 


310  EVELINA   HANSKA 

arrived  before  his  own  letter  announcing  his  departure  from 
Paris.  He  was  received  in  Russia  with  honours  innumerable ; 
Wierzchowna,  huge  and  feudal,  "  like  a  Louvre,"  appealed  to  his 
imagination.  He  loved  the  grandiose  always — even  the  fearful 
Russian  cold  pleased  him,  because  it  was  on  the  grand  scale.  .  .  . 
But  Eve  still  vacillated,  still  temporised.  That  could  have  been 
borne,  however,  since  he  was  with  her,  but  the  cold,  despite  his 
exultation  at  its  rigours,  brought  him  desperate  suffering.  His 
heart  had  been  tried  to  the  uttermost,  and  the  doctors  at 
Wierzchowna  knew  not  how  to  treat  him  ;  so  in  1848,  when  he 
got  back  to  Paris,  he  was  very  ill  indeed.  And  once  again, 
money-affairs  were  in  a  bad  state :  in  his  luxurious  exquisite 
house,  Balzac  was  soon  almost  starving.  But  he  still  hoped  on, 
still  worked,  still  believed  in  the  coming  good.  In  September, 
he  got  back  to  Wierzchowna.  Again  he  was  miserably  ill,  and 
again  she  would  give  no  definite  promise.  .  .  .  The  situation 
becomes  unbearable,  for  she  threatened  now  to  break  her  word 
altogether,  and  he  grew  iller  and  iller.  .  .  .  Did  he  realise  at 
last  how  little  she  cared  } 

But  the  great  will,  the  great  love,  prevailed.  On  March  14th, 
1850,  Balzac  and  Evelina  Hanska  were  married  at  Kiev.  She 
was  a  martyr  to  rheumatic  gout ;  he  was  dying  of  heart-disease, 
could  scarcely  move  without  losing  breath,  yet — "  I  am  nearly 
mad  with  happiness,"  he  wrote. 

Not  till  the  end  of  April  did  they  start  for  Paris.  Their 
journey  was  terrible :  by  the  time  they  reached  Dresden,  Balzac 
was  almost  dead.  But  Eve  found  the  Dresden  jewellers  irre- 
sistible; she  bought  herself  a  magnificent  pearl  necklace.  She 
wrote  to  Anna,  mentioned  incidentally  the  illness  of  "  our  poor 
dear  friend  "  and  went  on  to  describe,  in  lyric  raptures,  the  new 
necklace.  That  ardent  style,  which  had  set  fire  to  the  unknown 
author^s  heart,  was  now  enhancing  a  bauble,  while  he  lay  dying 
by  her  side — "  our  poor  dear  friend ! " 

Their  married  life  lasted  just  five  months.  We  know  of  it 
only  one  thing  certainly.  He  had  loved  her  for  sixteen  years, 
and  in  five  months  of  life  together,  she  changed  his  tender  ardent 
feeling  into  something  very  like  her  own.  .  .  .  Two  years  after  her 
first  letter,  he  had  cried,  exultantly,  "  Only  desperate  wounds, 


EVELINA    HANSKA  311 

like  blows  with  a  hatchet,  could  uproot  what  is  in  my  heart." 
That  great  heart  had  not  reckoned  with  the  "Nightmare 
Life-in-Death  " :  indifference. 

On  August  17th,  1850,  Balzac  died.     His  mother  was  with 
him  to  the  end  ;  his  wife  had  "  gone  to  her  own  rooms." 


\ 


MATHILDE   MIRAT 

(MADAME   HEINE) 
1818-1883 

HE  beheld  her  first  in  the  window  of  a  fashionable  glove- 
shop  in  Paris.  Sauntering  down  the  street,  with  that 
slipshod,  easy  gait  which  more  than  anything  else 
betrayed  his  Jewish  origin,  Henri  Heine  glanced  aside,  and  saw 
a  delicate  young  face,  framed  in  black  hair  so  thick  and  heavy 
that  it  seemed  to  weigh  down  the  neck,  and  lit  by  large  deep-set 
eyes  that  were  blacker  still.  Those  eyes  met  his — and  he  knew 
that  he  loved  her. 

The  next  step  must  be  to  know  her,  and  that  was  easy,  for 
the  glove-shop  was  not  for  women  only.  So  in  he  went:  a 
slender,  elegant,  yet  careless  apparition,  with  loose  masses  of 
light  chestnut  hair  around  a  broad  high  forehead,  with  light-blue 
sparkling,  laughing  eyes,  with  a  nose  whose  "slight  Hebraic 
curve  interfered  with  its  original  intention  of  being  Greek  ",  with 
lips  "  like  two  beautiful  rhymes  "  :  a  German  Apollo,  in  short,  as 
Thdophile  Gautier  called  him.  He  bought  a  pair  of  gloves,  no 
doubt,  for  the  slender  hands  which  were  another  of  his  beauties  ; 
and  the  lovely  assistant  was  kind.  He  learned  that  she  was 
just  eighteen,  that  the  patronn^  was  her  aunt,  that  she  came 
from  Belgium — a  country-girl.  .  .  .  And  then,  Henri  Heine 
looked  at  the  aunt.  One  look  was  enough.  She  bore  her 
character  on  her  face:  it  would  be  an  affair  for  negotiation. 
He  was  in  funds  at  the  time,  but  that  was  not  all — there  were 
other  assets  as  well. 

"  I  am  a  German  poet, 
In  Germany  well-known ; 
When  their  greatest  names  are  spoken 
Then  spoken  is  mine  own." 
312 


MATHILDE   MIRAT  313 

Heinrich  Heine :  had  she  not  heard  of  him  ?  And,  if  she  had, 
be  sure  she  connected  him  with  the  famous  millionaire  banker  of 
Hamburg,  Salomon  Heine.  .  .  .  How  long  the  affair  took,  we  are 
not  certainly  told  ;  but  it  was  arranged.  The  aunt  got  three 
thousand  francs,  and  Henri  carried  off  the  exquisite  Mathilde. 


He  was  passionately  in  love.  But  when  had  Harry  Heine 
not  been  passionately  in  love }  At  eleven,  it  had  begun  with 
"  Little  Veronica  ",  the  pale  baby  of  eight  who  had  given  him  her 
sprig  of  mignonette  with  a  kiss  upon  it.  "  I  must  have  a  sprig 
of  mignonette  on  my  tomb",  he  had  cried,  and  tradition  says 
that  he  remembered  that  promise  at  the  last.  Little  Veronica 
died ;  he  saw  the  tiny  waxen  form  laid  out  with  the  red  flowers 
about  it — a  child's  first  sight  of  death.  "Why  does  Veronica 
lie  so  still  ? "  **  Because  Veronica  is  dead."  ...  He  never 
forgot  her;  like  Byron  with  little  Mary  Duff— how  like 
the  two  men  were  in  many  ways ! — he  knew  that,  young  as 
they  both  were,  this  was  something  more  than  childish  fancy. 
Then,  at  fifteen,  had  come  the  strange,  red-haired  Josepha, 
^^  Sefchen  die  Rote'\  daughter  of  the  Westphalian  hangman — 
solitary,  despised,  mysterious,  wandering  alone  in  her  pride. 
The  delicate  pale  girl,  with  the  mouth  so  oddly  lifted  at  the 
corners,  and  the  slender,  swaying  waist !  She  would  sing  him 
old  songs  of  the  people,  would  tell  him  weird  Hangman's 
Legends — grim  stories  handed  down  from  pariah  to  pariah,  and 
tales  of  sorcery  and  magic  too,  of  love-potions,  of  "  ill-willings." 
.  .  .  And  he — a  German  Jew  born  in  1799, — did  not  he  also  know 
something  of  pariahdom  ?  They  strayed  together,  talking  thus, 
while  the  magic  stole  along  their  own  veins — the  magic  that 
needs  no  potions  .  .  .  and  at  last  they  fell  into  one  another's 
arms,  and  "stayed  a  whole  hour  without  speaking."  It  was 
from  Josepha  that  he  learned  to  love  old  song  and  legend,  and 
learned  too  all  the  tragedy,  all  the  mystery,  of  passion. 

Hamburg,  next,  and  the  love  which  helped  to  make  him  the 
greatest  lyrical  poet  in  the  world  :  "  Molly,"  the  seventeen-yeared 
cousin,  with  the  golden  hair,  blue  eyes,  pink  cheeks — the  feeble, 
neutral,  lovely  little  goose  who,  from  one  day  to  another,  was 


314  MATHILDE   MIR  AT 

Heine's  Liebchen^  and  a  good,  mediocre  burgess's  betrothed !  It 
was  to  Molly  that  the  exquisite  and  the  terrible  songs  of  the 
Intermezzo  were  all,  all  written. 

"  Full  many  a  lovely  flower 
From  out  my  tears  doth  spring, 
And  all  my  sighs  are  turning 
To  nightingales  that  sing. 

And,  little  one,  if  you  love  me, 
All  the  flowers  I'll  give  to  you. 
And  the  nightingales  at  your  window 
Shall  sing  their  songs  right  through." 


And  then : 


"  The  flutes  and  fiddles  are  playing. 
The  trumpets  are  pealing  high ; 
And  there,  in  the  wedding-dance  swaying, 
My  darling  love  goes  by. 

The  drums  are  beating  and  throbbing. 

The  oboes  deeply  sigh, 
Through  it  all  breaks  the  moaning  and  sobbing 

Of  the  angels  in  the  sky." 


"  It  is  an  old,  old  story 
And  yet  'tis  always  new  ; 
Just  now  'tis  happening  some  one 
And  breaking  his  heart  in  two." 

He  went  away  for  some  years,  but  when  he  returned  to  Hamburg 
in  1823,  the  pain  was  as  sharp  as  ever.  He  wrote  to  a  friend,  "  I 
ought  never  to  have  come  to  Hamburg  again  " — and  he  wrote, 
too,  the  wonderful  Doppelgdnger  poem  : 

"  The  streets  are  resting,  and  the  night  is  kind  ; 
This  is  the  house  where  dwelt  my  love  so  dear ; 
Long,  long  ago  she  left  the  town  behind, 
But  still  the  house  immutably  stands  here. 

And  here  a  man  doth  stand  and  upward  stare, 
And  wring  his  hands  in  pain  and  agony  : 
I  shudder  when  I  see  his  face,  for  there 
The  moon  doth  show  my  very  self  to  me. 

Pale  comrade,  how  canst  bear  to  ape  my  pain. 
Thou  Other-Me,  how  mimic  thus  the  woe 
That  caught  and  rent  me,  o'er  and  o'er  again, 
H  ere,  at  this  place,  this  hour,  long  long  ago  1 " 


MATHILDE  MIRAT  S15 

And  the  heart-rending  Lonely  Tear : 

*'  What  means  this  tear  so  lonely 
That  dims  my  sight  at  last  ? 
It  must  have  lingered  with  me 
From  old  old  times  long  past. 

It  once  had  shining  sisters 
But  now  they  all  are  shed, 
And  with  my  joys  and  sorrows 
Down  the  wild  night  are  fled. 

Fled,  too,  like  misty  vapours 
The  little  stars  of  blue 
That  smiled  those  joys  and  sorrows 
My  heart,  my  heart  into  ! 

Ah,  love  itself  has  vanished 
Like  breath,  beyond  recall  ! 
Flow,  tear,  so  old,  so  lonely. 
Flow  down,  and  end  it  all !  " 

He  saw  Molly  again,  many  years  after  her  marriage.  "  Are  you 
Molly  ? "  he  whispered,  scarcely  knowing  her.  "  The  world  calls 
me  so."  .  .  .  All  her  first  loveliness  was  gone  :  she  seemed  an 
elderly,  tired  woman : 

"  I  dreamt  that  I  saw  my  darling 
A  woman  worn  with  care. 
Withered  and  thin  was  the  body 
That  once  did  bloom  so  fair."  .  .  . 

They  took  a  walk  together,  and  she  said  "  How  did  you  know  I 
was  wretched  }  oh,  those  wild  songs  of  yours  !  "  .  .  .  She  had 
read  the  tragic  Ich  grolle  nichty  and  life  had  taught  her,  it  may 
be,  enough  for  her  to  envy  him.  He  at  any  rate  could  speak 
out.  .  .  .  They  parted  after  that  walk,  and  he  never  saw  her 
again.     From  Hamburg  he  fled  : 

"  Were  ever  such  hateful,  narrow  streets  ! 
Such  unendurable  plaster ! 
The  houses  are  falling  about  my  head  : 
I  can't  get  away  any  faster !  " 

He  got  away,  but  his  depression  followed  him ;  black  days  and 
nights  there  were,  misery,  irony,  cynicism,  despair : 

"  Almighty  God  is  dead  in  Heaven, 
And  dead  in  Hell's  the  Devil  too." 


316  MATHILDE   MIRAT 

But  that  was  the  cure  :  to  write  poetry.  He  wrote  and  wrote  : 
much  of  the  same  bitter  kind,  but  as  he  "  wrote  it  out  "  of  himself, 
he  felt  the  soft  airs  of  spring  awakening  again  in  his  heart : 

"  Only  wait !  these  distant  echoes 
Of  my  pain  will  cease  their  ringing, 
And  an  April-growth  of  music 
From  my  solaced  heart  be  springing." 

It  was  the  New  Springs  or  he  called  it  so  ;  but  it  was  more  like 
summer.  Something  was  gone.  Only  once  and  again  did  the 
Spring-note  sound.  .  .  .  There  came  a  procession  of  fair  women  : 
Titianesque,  Rossettian,  Burne-Jonesian — every  type  now  ;  and 
the  dream-type  too — the  Lorelei,  the  ^^ Nixe'\  the  Mermaid  who 
creeps  from  the  sea  : 

"  Sing  me  dead,  caress  me  dead, 
Kiss  away  the  curse  of  living  "  ; 

and  then,  the  exquisite  Miriam,  little  Jewess,  to  whom  the  love- 
liest of  all  his  lyrics  went : 

"  Thou  art  as  is  a  flower, 
So  fair  and  pure  and  sweet  ; 
I  gaze  at  thee,  and  softly. 
Sadly,  my  heart  doth  beat. 

I  long  to  lay  in  blessing 
My  hands  upon  thy  hair, 
Praying  that  God  may  keep  thee 
So  pure  and  sweet  and  fair." 

But  that  ethereal  loveliness  was  only  one  mood.  There  are 
poems  here  to  shudder  at,  poems  that  seem  to  say  the  last 
word  of  cynicism  about  women — the  "Blue  Hussar"  verses,  for 
instance  : 


And  then : 


"  The  Blue  Hussars  come  bugling, 
And  in  thro'  the  gate  they  ride  "  . 


"  The  Blue  Hussars  go  bugling 
And  out  thro'  the  gate  they  ride— 
I  come  at  once,  my  love,  and  bring 
A  wreath  of  roses  tied. 


MATHILDE   MIRAT  317 

Faith,  'twas  a  wild  adventure 
Quartering  that  mad  lot ! 
But  in  thy  little  heart,  dear, 
Was  room  enough,  was  there  not  ? " 

"Aspasias  of  Gottingen,  Messalinas  of  Amsterdam,  Vestals  of 
the  Hanseatic  Towns  "...  that  was  his  life  ;  and  in  the  middle 
of  the  scepticism  and  the  cynicism,  suddenly  a  thing  like  this, 
which  one  cannot  read  without  a  contraction  of  the  heart  for  its 
sheer  beauty : 

"  Alone  in  the  coach  we  travelled. 
In  the  dark  mail-coach  all  night  ; 
On  each  other's  hearts  we  rested, 
Joking  and  laughing  light. 

But  child  !  when  the  dawn  came  dawning, 
What  was  it  we  trembled  at  ? — 
Between  us  there,  between  us, 
Love,  the  Blind  Traveller,  sat." 

In  1 83 1,  his  pleasure  and  his  dissipation  were  at  their  height 
— and  this  was  the  song  he  sang : 

"  The  lovely  wishes  blossom, 
And  wither  then  and  die, 
And  blossom  again  and  wither — 
And  so,  till  Life's  gone  by. 

I  know  it,  and  it  troubles 

For  me  all  love  and  rest  ; 

My  heart  is  so  wise  and  witty, 

And  bleeding  to  death  in  my  breast ! " 


Then,  in  1832,  came  Mathilde  Mirat.  Let  us  read  the  pen- 
portrait  by  Alexander  Weill  (the  intimate  of  Heine  for  fifteen 
years),  that  clever,  cynical,  erudite  Jew,  who  knew  him — and 
Mathilde — as  no  one  else  in  the  world  knew  them.  .  .  .  She  was 
twenty-three  when  Heine  bought  her  from  the  aunt.  "  Does  the 
reader  know  the  Statue  of  Phryne  in  the  Madrid  Academy? 
Mathilde  might  have  posed  for  it.  Her  plastic  beauty  was 
without  distinction,  but  it  was  perfect  of  its  kind.  She  was  as  if 
made  of  marble.     Her  teeth  were  lovelier  than   the   pearls  of 


318  MATHILDE   MIRAT 

Ophir  ;  and  she  smiled  continually,  of  course,  for  she  had  an 
exquisite  dimple  besides.  And  the  smile  often  became  a  laugh 
with  malicious  little  movements  of  the  eyes — a  silvery  and 
provoking  laugh !  She  had  wonderful  crimson  lips,  so  coloured 
that  they  looked  as  if  they  might  have  been  painted — but  they 
were  not:  it  was  a  faultless,  full  baby-mouth.  Great  brown 
eyes,  smiling,  brooding,  like  the  moon  through  a  cloud;  dark 
clustering  hair,  beautiful  feet  and  hands,  a  clear,  sweet  voice — 
one  of  her  greatest  charms."  ...  It  is  a  ravishing  picture,  but 
Weill  has  something  more  to  say.  "  One  defect  she  had — fatal 
in  my  eyes :  her  forehead  was  oval,  not  high  and  broad.  She 
hid  it  with  her  hair,  but  no  woman  can  hide  the  real  shape  of 
her  forehead  from  a  connoisseur.  This  type  shows  a  puerile 
intellect,  little  power  of  reflection,  little  reason,  yet  obstinacy 
without  true  energy,  which  easily  degenerates  into  stamping  and 
tears.  Mathilde  was  good-natured  to  weakness,  but  she  loved 
*  scenes.'  "... 

"  She  was  a  dazzling  flower  of  flesh,  a  superb  female  animal, 
her  plastic  beauty  only  equalled  by  her  intellectual  nullity,"  says 
Paleologue,  "  and  Heine  delighted  in  this :  he  was  tired  of 
brilliant  women." 

Well,  it  is  an  old  story,  is  it  not  i^ — this  of  Henri  Heine's  wife 
who  never  read  a  line  of  his  poetry.  We  have  all  heard  it ;  and 
we  have  all  accepted,  somewhat  sheepishly,  the  tradition  of  his 
"  happiness  ".  If  Weill  does  not  precisely  dispel  this  illusion,  he 
at  least  tears  down  many  of  the  veils.  Something  of  the  poet's 
own  irony  is  infused  into  our  feeling.  The  tale  was  never  very 
romantic,  perhaps,  but  we  had  contrived  to  put  what  romance 
there  was  into  the  wrong  chapter.  Now  we  perceive  that  the 
romance  lay — not  in  what  Henri  Heine  enjoyed,  but  in  what  he 
endured. 

In  1835,  when  they  had  been  living  together  for  three  years, 
he  once  exclaimed,  "  I  am  condemned  to  love  only  the  basest 
and  the  foolishest !  "  .  .  .  All  through  life  his  cry  to  women  was 
"  Oh  !  do  not  lie  "  ifl  liige  nicht !)  He  had  no  faith :  "  Woman 
is  bitterer  than  death  "  ;  and  again  :  "  What  a  destiny  is  mine ! 
To  have  made  of  Love  a  religion,  to  believe  in  it  as  others  do  in 
a  dogma,  yet  not  to  be  able  to  believe  in  the  beings  who  inspire 


I    !  • « •  •    •- 


MATHILDE   MIRAT  (MADAME   HEINE) 


-     e"^ 


MATHILDE  MIRAT  319 

it ! "  'Tis  the  old  problem  of  Byron — solved,  as  we  have  else- 
where said,  by  an  acute  Frenchman  :  "  Besoin  impirieux  de  la 
fernme  et  m^pris  de  la  femme!'  .  .  .  Poetic  justice  i women 
cannot  but  feel  this  punishment  of  Heine  (and  of  Byron)  to  be  ; 
and  they  traverse  the  word  Love  in  Heine's  indictment ! 

"  Spirits  are  not  finely  touched 
But  to  fine  issues  .  .  ." 

nor  are  spirits  meanly  touched,  but  to  mean  issues. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  read  the  details  of  daily  life  with 
Mathilde.  For  nine  years  they  lived  together  unwed ;  then  in 
1 84 1,  so  as  to  make  provision  for  her  in  case  he  fell  in  an 
impending  duel,  he  married  her.  After  this,  he  began  to  write  of 
her  in  his  letters  to  his  mother  and  his  beloved  sister  Lotte  : 
"  She  has  the  noblest  and  best  heart,  she  is  good  as  an  angel." 
.  .  .  This  was  putting  a  good  face  on  it — for  in  what  ways  did  the 
"  noblest  and  best  heart "  display  itself .?  We  search  every  page, 
and  can  find  no  sort  of  answer.  True,  she  was  faithful  to  him  ; 
true,  she  laughed  and  chattered  when  she  felt  inclined, — and  her 
laugh  and  her  chatter  were  divinely  musical ;  but  that  is  all. 
She  never  spared  him  a  scene,  a  quarrel ;  she  certainly  never 
spared  him  a  penny,  she  spent  his  money  like  water  :  "  the  Sweet 
Spendthrift "  was  one  of  his  names  for  her — she  alienated 
every  friend  he  had,  she  fed  him  abominably,  she  nursed  him 
(in  the  later  years)  abominably,  and  gave  the  doctor  a  black 
eye  when  she  heard  him  say  so ;  she  preferred  her  screech- 
ing parrot  to  anything  else  in  the  world.  .  .  .  Once,  in  the 
evil  years  of  suffering  towards  the  end,  the  sick  man  got  it  into 
his  head  that  she  might  have  run  away,  weary  of  the  tedium  of  a 
husband  on  a  Mattress-Grave.  "  Go  and  see  if  Cocotte  is  there," 
he  said^ — and  when  they  told  him  yes,  he  sank  back  relieved,  the 
ironic  gleam  came  round  his  lips  :  "  Then  it's  all  right !  She'd 
never  leave  kim  behind." 

This  was  Cocotte  Number  Two.  Number  One  had  met  his 
death  at  Heine's  own  hands.  (For  we  must  in  justice  show  both 
sides  of  the  picture  ! )  He  had  suddenly  become  possessed  by  a 
furious  jealousy  of  the  bird,  and  with  Weill's  connivance,  he 
gave  it  poison.     The  three,  Henri,  Mathilde,  and  Weill,  had  been 


320  MATHILDE   MIR  AT 

dining  at  a  restaurant  and,  coming  home,  found  the  dead  parrot 
in  the  cage.  Mathilde  uttered  a  terribly  poignant  cry — then 
flung  herself  on  the  ground,  and  exclaimed,  "  Me  voila  seule  au 
nionde ! "  The  men  laughed,  somewhat  guiltily  no  doubt,  and 
Heine  said,  "  Am  /  nothing  ? "  She  rose,  and  with  a  tragic 
gesture :  "  Nothing,  nothing,  nothing  ! "  Still  Heine  laughed  ; 
and  Weill,  foreseeing  tumult,  effaced  himself.  But  next  day  when 
he  arrived,  all  was  calm — only  Henri  drew  him  aside  :  "  Never 
let  her  know  it  was  I.  She  would  be  incapable  of  forgiving  me." 
She  never  did  know  ;  he  got  her  another  Cocotte  in  a  week.  .  .  . 
The  second  was  perhaps  less  worshipped  ;  but  it  would  seem,  to 
judge  by  the  later  anecdote,  that  at  any  rate  it  was  worshipped 
enough. 

"  She  loved  no  one  really,"  affirms  Weill.  "  She  was  a  great 
eater,  and  great  eaters  are  never  passionate — nor  orderly.  Tout 
s'en  va  par  la  gueuleP  Mathilde  indeed  could  manage  two  beef- 
steaks for  breakfast,  and  half-a-bottle  of  wine  ;  she  liked  such 
simple  food,  but  demanded  "big,  juicy  bits".  Heine,  on  the 
contrary,  was  an  epicure :  it  was  he  who  said  of  one  of  V^ron's 
famous  dinners  that  it  ought  to  have  been  eaten  kneeling.  Theirs 
was  a  Bohemian  menage  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  word.  Neither 
had  a  notion  of  order  or  economy,  and  comfort,  for  all  the 
lavish  expenditure,  seems  always  to  have  lacked.  There  would 
be  fish  for  dinner,  and  the  fish,  despite  the  masking  sauce, 
would  proclaim  itself.  ..."  What  do  you  think  of  the 
fish,  Weill  ? "  Mathilde  inquired.  Weill,  in  gala-dress — for  he 
was  "going  on" — replied  with  brutal  candour  that  he  thought 
it  was  bad.  She  threw  the  dish  in  his  face.  ...  To  petrifi- 
cation, succeeded  Homeric  laughter  from  host  and  hostess, 
the  guest  listening  in  difficult  silence.  "  Never  mind.  She  shall 
be  beaten  on  Monday,"  promised  the  husband.  "To-day  is 
Monday,"  Weill  remarked — and  went  home  to  change.  A  few 
days  later,  Henri  said,  "  I  shall  be  getting  jealous !  She  never 
does  those  things  to  anyone  but  me  as  a  rule."  Et  voila  les 
maris !  is  Weill's  scathing  comment — though  indeed  he  was  a 
happy  husband  himself;  "but  my  wife  is  as  different  from 
Mathilde  as  a  dove  is  from  a  peacock."  .  .  .  Mathilde,  in  her  turn, 
referred  to  the  incident.     "  What  would  you  do  if  you  were  my 


MATHILDE   MIRAT  321 

husband  ?  "  Weill  answered  with  consummate  irony  :  "  I  should 
throw  the  dishes  in  my  own  face."  Did  she  understand  ?  She 
rushed,  at  any  rate — with  the  delicious  laugh  rippling  behind  her — 
to  tell  Henri.  Henri  understood.  The  sparkling  eye  encountered 
Weill's :  "  There  would  not  be  enough  dishes  for  thatl^  Henri 
murmured. 


But  we  must  not  let  Weill's  pitiless  reporting  wholly  influ- 
ence us.  Mathilde  brought  into  her  husband's  life  at  any  rate 
Laughter  :  simple  childish  mirth  with  no  irony  round  the  crimson 
lips,  no  sneer  to  mar  the  dimple.  That  meant  much  to  the  rest- 
less, vibrating  spirit,  worn  with  sorrow  and  the  exquisite  expres- 
sion of  sorrow.  So  long  as  she  would  laugh,  Heine  was  content 
He  did  try — characteristically  inconsistent ! — to  educate  her  a 
little  ;  in  the  early  days,  Mathilde  was  actually  put  to  school  for 
a  year.  They  taught  her  the  rudiments  of  spelling,  "  a  little  litera- 
ture," the  four  rules  of  arithmetic,  some  history  and  geography. 
.  .  .  Once  out  again,  she  never  opened  a  book,  "  and  died  with- 
out having  read  a  single  line  of  Heine's  poetry  or  prose."  But 
their  walks  together,  during  the  incarceration  !  On  Thursdays 
he  could  go  to  see  her ;  on  Sundays  (the  odd  school  it  must  have 
been ! )  "  il  la  reprenait  chez  ltd"  And  off  they  would  start 
down  the  boulevards,  she  hanging  on  his  arm,  gay  as  a  lark, 
chattering,  laughing  in  the  musical  voice,  moving  with  the  supple 
beautiful  movement,  while  he  listened  to  the  nonsense  and 
enjoyed  the  looks  of  admiration  that  fastened  on  her  radiant  face 
— for  Heine  was  vain  of  his  "  Wild  Cat,"  and  liked  other  men  to 
realise  what  a  conquest  he  had  made. 

Mathilde  too  enjoyed  the  looks  of  admiration.  Intensely  vain 
was  she — vain,  and  further !  "  She  was  quite  ready  to  show  her 
graces  "  :  Weill  has  some  astounding  anecdotes  to  tell.  There 
was  a  little  dinner  a  trois^  for  instance,  where  they  drank  to  "  her 
beauties  seen  and  unseen  ",  the  husband  (as  he  then  was)  acqui- 
escing. And  yet  he  was  desperately  jealous.  .  .  .  Useless  to  hope 
for  comprehension  of  Henri  Heine !  From  what  point  of  view 
can  we  regard  him  .?  By  what  standard  judge  him  ?  From  no 
point  of  view,  and  by  no  standard,  we  are  tempted  to  cry.     He 


Sn  MATHILDE   MIRAT 

eludes  us  every  way.  When  we  think  we  are  examining  the 
Ironist  of  Ironists,  suddenly  our  eyes  are  dimmed  with  the  tears 
called  up  by  the  Sentimentalist  of  Sentimentalists.  As  we  sum 
up  dispassionately  against  the  Man,  we  glance  at  the  dock  and 
find  it  turned  into  a  tribunal,  whence  the  Knight  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  regards  us  critically  in  our  ridiculous  trappings  of  "  Justice." 
For  life  came  to  him  as  such  a  bundle  of  paradox  that  it  is  little 
wonder  he  himself  was  Paradox  Incarnate.  Heine,  the  German 
Jew,  who  was  not  christened  Heinrich,  but  "  Harry  " — after  an 
English  friend  of  his  father :  he  who  hated  England  !  Henri 
Heine,  the  German  who  passionately  worshipped  Germany  and 
lived  in  Paris,  who  "took  the  world  as  a  huge  masked  ball 
where  I  went  about  with  a  false  nose,  and  told  the  truth  to  the 
motley  dominoes"  and  then  (as  cruel  Weill  reminded  him) 
"  married  one  of  the  dominoes  "  ;  Heine,  the  "  converted  "  Jew 
who  never  was  a  Christian,  the  Hedonist  on  the  Mattress-Grave, 
the  sceptic  whose  last  words  were  "  Dzeu  me  pardonnera :  d est  son 
metier "  ;  sentimentalist  and  cynic,  libertine  and  family-man — 
truly  in  Matthew  Arnold's  words  : 

"  The  Spirit  of  the  worid 
Beholding  the  absurdity  of  men — 
Their  vaunts,  their  feats — let  a  sardonic  smile 
For  one  short  moment  wander  o'er  his  lips. 
That  senile  was  Heine !  " — 

the  poet  who  could  write  Du  bist  wie  eine  Blume^  and  the  Blue 
Hussars^  the  man  who  distrusted  women  and  married  his  bought 
mistress,  while  she,  to  complete  the  paradox  of  his  destiny,  was 
faithful  to  him  not  only  during  his  life,  but  for  ever !  She  lived 
for  twenty-seven  years  after  he  died,  and  she  never  looked  at 
another  man. 


Mathilde  would  weep  for  the  moon,  cry,  stamp,  tear  her  hair, 
hit  herself — and  he  soon  learned  to  look  on  composedly.  If  no 
notice  was  taken,  the  lovely  termagant  would  sit  on  the  floor  and 
stare  for  a  minute  or  two,  like  an  ignored,  naughty  child  .  .  .  then 
a  little  giggle  would  break  forth,  then  the  enchanting  laugh,  with 
the  pearly  teeth  and  the  dimple :  and  all  would  be  halcyon  again. 


MATHILDE  MIRAT  323 

But  on  Mondays — we  have  the  terrible  Weill's  serious  authority 
for  it — on  Mondays  Mathilde  really  used  to  get  a  beating.  Heine 
would  thump  her  lovely  shoulders  with  his  fists,  and  she  (who 
could  easily  have  prevented  him)  would  suffer  it  a  while,  then 
suddenly  fall  and,  catching  him  round  the  ankles,  drag  him  to 
the  ground  with  her.  There  they  would  roll  together,  struggling 
for  a  minute  or  two  .  .  .  then,  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  embrace, 
kiss,  laugh,  and  Mathilde  would  know  that  on  Tuesday  a  new  hat 
or  a  new  shawl  would  be  added  to  her  wardrobe.  "These 
scenes,"  remarks  Weill,  "  no  matter  how  happily  they  ended,  were 
depressing  for  those  who  often  witnessed  them  ;  but  he  loved  her 
comme  un  damned  .  .  .  We  accept  the  epithet,  do  we  not }  The 
ugliness  would  have  relieved  us  from  the  frequency,  we  imagine  : 
"  once  would  have  been  enough,"  we  cry,  in  our  hot  British  anger. 
And  we  should  have  been  mistaken  (as  Weill  was  not) — we 
should  have  gone  away  and^  said  that  Heine  and  his  wife  were 
miserable  together ! 

They  had  miserable  moments,  certainly — or  rather,  he  had. 
Mathilde,  who  never  did  anything  she  did  not  want  to  do,  had 
"  scenes "  ;  but  they  were  part  of  her  happiness.  She  began 
their  life  together  with  a  superb  outburst  of  melodrama.  Waking 
in  the  early  dawn,  she  sat  up  in  bed,  and  said :  "  I  have  given 
you  all,  Henri.  Don't  think  that  I  don't  know  you  bought  me. 
You  are  the  only  man  who  ever  took  my  fancy— and  they  say 
Germans  are  more  constant  than  Frenchmen.  /  will  never  leave 
you — whether  you  love  me  or  not,  marry  me  or  not,  ill-treat  me 
or  not  .  .  .  never,  never,  never  ! " 

"  But  I  don't  want  you  to,"  murmured  drowsy  Henri.  "  I 
love  you." 

"  I  shall  stay  with  you  always,  always,  always ! " 

"  What  a  scene ! "  rejoined  he,  at  last  waking  up.  "  And 
what  would  you  do  if  /  left  you  ? " 

"  Kill  myself  at  your  feet !  " 

"  Well,  come  to  breakfast ! "  says  the  lover,  a  little  irritated  at 
the  fuss — but  she  had  not  finished. 

"  I  shall  never  leave  you.  Wherever  you  go,  I'll  go.  I  am 
yours,  because  you  have  bought  me,  but  I've  bought  you  too — 
you  know  the  price.  .  .  .  And  you  are  mine  for  life ! " 


324  MATHILDE   MIRAT 

She  kept  her  word  ;  she  never  left  him.  "  But  she  did  nothing 
to  make  him  marry  her,"  affirms  Weill ;  "  she  was  glad  when  he 
did,  but  not  enraptured."  She  was  not  jealous,  though  he  was 
incessantly  unfaithful ;  she  would  even  have  his  Cynthias  of  the 
Minute  to  table  with  her — they  were  less  lovely  than  herself,  she 
knew !  What  she  could  not  tolerate  were  his  Platonic  friendships 
— such  as  that  with  Camille  Selden,  the  "  Mouche  "  of  his  later, 
dying  years.  To  Mouche,  Mathilde  would  never  be  decently 
civil ;  she  would  barely  nod  to  the  little  woman  with  the  attrac- 
tive plain  face,  would  leave  her  husband's  room  if  she  happened 
to  be  in  it  when  Mouche  entered.  Nothing  could  be  more 
natural  than  that,  we  think  ;  and  Mouche  was  not  void  of  offence 
in  the  matter  of  jealousy,  for  we  find  in  her  little  book  a  very 
slighting  reference  to  Mathilde's  beauty.  "  The  type  of  woman 
to  whom  one  feels  inclined  to  recommend  less  good  food  and 
more  exercise."  Mouche,  one  perceives,  was  not  a  saint — and 
indeed  she  does  not  look  like  one :  a  face  sympathetic  enough, 
but  certainly  capable  of  feline  glances,  confronts  us  as  we  eagerly 
find  the  portrait  of  Heine's  last  friend.  A  Platonic  companion- 
ship— well,  it  could  not  have  been  aught  else ;  but  Heine  used 
the  tones,  the  movements,  the  words  of  passion,  as  we  know 
from  his  own  hand  in  a  letter  to  her  :  Pardon !  You  see^  ifs 
DeatUs  fault  for  coming  so  soon.  "  Camille  Selden  was  the  Dream  ; 
Mathilde  was  the  Reality,"  says  Paleologue  ;  "  he  died  between 
tenderness  and  volupte^  Once  more  before  I  die  I  want  to  love  a 
woman  ! — but  his  eyes  were  half-closed  in  death  already,  the 
exquisite  hands  were  twisted  and  stiff,  the  lips  ("  like  two  beauti- 
ful rhymes ! ")  were  cold :  *'  My  lips  are  so  paralysed  that  they 
could  not  kiss — and  it  is  harder  to  do  without  kissing  than 
without  speaking."  .  .  . 

In  December,  1844,  Salomon  Heine,  the  millionaire  uncle,  had 
died.  Although  his  marriage  had  been  a  failure  in  that  direction 
— Mathilde  had  seriously  displeased  the  great  man — Henri  had 
still  hoped  that  all  was  well.  "  I  shall  be  my  uncle's  heir  ! "  he 
used  to  say.  But  Salomon  left  him  only  a  sum  of  16,000  francs. 
He  dropped  in  a  dead  faint  when  he  heard  it.  Mathilde  and 
Weill  had  to  put  him  to  bed,  and  "  he  wept  bitterly — the  only 
tears  I  ever  saw  him  shed"     It  was  a  mortal  shock :  his  fatal 


MATHILDE   MIRAT  325 

illness  dates  really  from  that  day,  although  in  1839  the  first 
warning  had  come,  and  Heine's  pagan  health  was  even  then  a 
thing  of  the  past.  He  had  told  Weill  in  1837  that  he  considered 
himself  a  demi-god  ;  but  in  1839,  bitterly  recalling  the  boast, 
he  murmured  that  he  didn't  now  suppose  he  could  be,  for  he  had 
never  heard  of  the  great  gods  having  injections.  By  1848,  the 
paralysis  was  very  far  advanced.  His  legs  were  powerless,  he 
had  to  lift  his  eyelids  with  his  finger  before  he  could  see,  he  was 
incapable  of  reading  or  writing  for  the  most  part  of  the  day.  .  .  . 
Death  was  coming — had  come.  It  was  so  slow,  and  yet  it  had 
been  so  quick  :  even  in  that,  Heine  could  not  escape  the  Paradox  | 
Yet  he  was  neither  melancholy  nor  impatient ;  the  irony  gleamed 
out  still,  the  mind  was  clear,  the  imagination  vivid,  the  heart 
infinitely  tender.  Women-friends  he  had  in  troops  ;  men-friends 
were  few,  so  one  day  when  Berlioz  came  to  see  him,  he  ostenta- 
tiously lifted  the  eyelid,  peered  at  him,  and  said  with  the  old 
sparkle  :  "  What  an  original  you  will  persist  in  being,  Berlioz  !  " 
Weill  came,  of  course — until  Mathilde  estranged  them ;  then 
there  were  family-visits,  the  dear  sister  Lotte.  .  .  .  Mathilde 
nursed  him  with  indifferent  kindness.  "There  were  no  tender 
words,  no  exquisite  attentions  to  soothe  the  endless  agony " ; 
and,  her  duties  once  over,  away  she  would  scurry  to  dress  herself 
— in  the  green  silk  gown,  the  "  Vitzliputzli "  gown,  because  it 
cost  him  all  that  was  paid  for  that  wonderful  poem ! — to  walk 
and  saunter  in  the  sun,  to  visit  the  Circus  and  the  Little  Theatres. 
.  .  .  Then  Mouche  would  arrive,  and  he  and  she  would  talk  of 
everything  in  heaven  and  earth  ! 

His  courage,  like  his  patience,  was  supreme.  He  had  neither 
religious  faith  nor  philosophical  doctrine  to  help  him :  he  had 
nothing  but  his  chainless  intellectual  pride — Dieu  me pardonnera  : 
c*est  son  metier — his  great  soul,  his  tender  heart : 

"  My  heart  is  like  that  ocean — 
Has  storms,  and  ebbs  and  flows, 
And  pearls  as  fair  as  any- 
Down  in  its  depths  repose." 

But  there  were  cynicisms  still :  "  I've  made  my  will.  All  goes  to 
my  wife  on  one  condition — that  she  marries  again  directly  I  die. 
I  want  at  any  rate  07ie  man  to  be  sorry  I'm  dead."     Jeer  as  he 


326  MATHILDE  MIRAT 

might,  though,  he  loved  her  unalterably.  She  lost  him  his  friends, 
she  worried,  tormented,  neglected  him — still  he  loved  her  ;  though 
the  Selbstparodie  must  sound  for  that  too :  "  I  am  so  absent- 
minded  that  sometimes  I  mistake  another  woman  for  my  wife." 
But  then  again :  "  She  brightens  life  and  makes  it  beautiful,  con- 
soles and  enraptures  me,  but  often  gives  me  a  blow  to  the  heart 
by  her  extravagance.  It  is  my  greatest  affliction,  and  yet  I  am 
no  miser.  I  have  long  ceased  to  laugh  at  it."  But  he  belied  his 
own  words,  for  it  was  not  long  before  he  wrote  with  the  laugh 
in  his  pen :  "  We  live  in  the  most  beautiful  and  expensive 
peace ! " 

Let  us  abandon  the  efifort  to  understand,  and  rejoice  in  every 
happy  hour  he  had — for  he  has  given  the  world  so  many ! 

"  Death — Death  it  is  the  cool  fresh  night, 
And  Life  is  but  the  sultry  day  ; 
'Tis  growing  dark,  I'm  drowsy, 
The  day  has  wearied  me  with  light. 

Over  my  bed  there  grows  a  tree, 
Young  nightingales  therein  do  sing, 
And  sing  of  love,  love  only  ... 
Even  in  dreams  it  comes  to  me." 

Death  came  actually  at  last  on  February  17,  1856.  Mathilde 
was  not  with  him  at  the  end  ;  but  that  was  not  her  fault.  The 
nurse  had  purposely  neglected  to  call  her.  She  confessed  it  in  a 
letter  to  his  sister,  and  added,  "Do  not  tell  Madame  Heine." 
,  .  .  Evidently,  some  personal,  or  perhaps  professional,  hostility. 
Poor  Mathilde,  whom  no  one  liked !  For  no  one  ever  seems  to 
have  liked  her  much,  and  assuredly  no  one  loved  her — except 
her  husband,  whom  alone  she  harmed.  He  forgave  her,  and  we 
must  do  the  same.  .  .  .  Shall  we  glance  at  her,  many  years  after 
his  death — corpulent  exceedingly  but  lovely  still — offering  his 
favourite  dish  at  one  of  her  extravagant,  untidy  dinner-parties } 
Mon  pauvre  Henri  !  she  would  say  with  a  sigh,  and  help  herself 
plentifully.  .  .  .  There,  in  the  little  house  in  the  Rue  de  I'Ecluse 
she  had  still  her  Cocotte,  and  half-a-hundred  canaries  and  three 
yapping  little  dogs  besides.  The  din  was  monstrous,  but  she  did 
not  mind  it— she  never  had  minded  it,  any  more  than  she  had 
minded   that   her   dying   husband   was    tortured   by   Cocotte's 


MATHILDE  MIRAT  327 

screech.  .  .  .  She  was  primitive :  she  had  the  endurance  and 
the  unchangingness  of  primitive  things. 

On  February  17 — the  anniversary  of  Heine's  death — in  1883, 
she  was  struck  down  by  apoplexy,  and  died  at  once.  They  lie 
buried  together  in  Montmartre,  where  the  plain  stone  is  with 
Henri  Heine  on  it — nothing  more.  Mathilde  would  never  have 
the  R.LP.  which  his  family  had  loudly  demanded.  She  had 
known  him  better  than  they — known  how  little  creeds  had  meant 
to  the  Knight  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  "  There  shall  be  only  Henri 
Heine."  .  .  .  And  we  look,  and  remember — and  forgive  Mathilde 
at  last  ! 


ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN 

1835-1868 

/  try  to  bloom  tip  into  the  light  .  .  . 

THAT  motto  of  her  own  writing  she  might  well  have 
chosen  for  her  own  life,  as  she  chose  the  words  Tkott 
knowest  for  her  grave.  "  A  striving,  and  a  striving,  and 
an  ending  in  nothing" — the  leading-phrase  of  pessimism  comes 
back  to  us,  as  we  read  of  Adah  Isaacs  Menken  ;  another  phrase, 
too,  comes  back — one  which  may  be  the  last  word  of  despair  or 
triumph:  Character  is  Fate.  For  nothing,  no  one,  but  herself 
could  save  her ;  and  herself  was  the  traitor  always.  What  is 
that  mysterious  drawing  of  some  women  always  to  the  evil  men  ? 
Round  this  one,  men  thronged  perpetually — those  of  every  type. 
To  her  rooms  in  London  came  Dickens,  Charles  Reade,  Watts- 
Phillips,  John  Oxenford,  Algernon  Charles  Swinburne  ;  to  those 
in  Paris,  Th^ophile  Gautier,  Alexandre  Dumas  ;  and  everywhere 
that  she  was  came  the  Bohemian  in  all  his  incarnations — in  his 
fineness,  coarseness,  goodness,  badness.  Genial  brilliant  fellows, 
with  pipes  for  ever  in  their  mouths  and  kindness  for  ever  in 
their  hearts,  rough  of  speech  sometimes,  calling  her  "  Menken  " 
tout  courts  yet  ready  at  any  moment  to  stand  by  her  in  any 
trouble.  .  .  .  Such  men  she  had  at  command  throughout  her 
life ;  one  man  she  had  towards  the  end  for  whom  no  chivalrous 
deed,  no  gentle-hearted  devotion,  were  too  knightly — and  from 
such  friends  or  such  lovers,  she,  as  it  were  by  fatality,  must  turn 
away  to  those  at  whom  the  imagination  shudders  :  "  Benicia 
Boys ",  Wall  Street  punchers  (whatever  that  may  be),  and  foul- 
mouthed  "  Johnnie  Gideons  ",  who  would  write  of  her  after  she 
was  dead  without  a  kindly  thought,  piling  lie  upon  lie  to  make 
better — or  worse — copy. 

328 


ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN  329 

A  circus-rider — and  one  whose  performance  was  denounced 
in  the  papers  as  "  at  once  a  scandal  and  a  sham  "...  of  such 
a  woman  we  might  say  in  our  haste  that  surely  the  Johnnie 
Gideons  were  free  to  write  what  they  liked  !  She  was  the 
notorious  Mazeppa  of  Astley's  in  1864,  when  all  London 
streamed  over  Westminster  Bridge  to  behold  her — all  male 
London,  that  is,  "  all  elderly  vicious  London,"  say  some 
chroniclers.  It  was  the  elderly  men  who  filled  the  stalls,  who 
leered  from  the  boxes  at  the  "  shameless  exhibition  "...  So 
we  read,  and  push  the  page  away  to  find  the  small  contemporary 
photographs :  Menken  as  Mazeppa.  *  What  do  we  see  ?  In 
one,  a  little  figure  seated  on  a  tiger-skin,  the  dark  head  bent,  the 
hair  parted  boyishly,  a  sweet  round  face  beneath — and  a  form  so 
exquisite  that  our  eyes  linger  gladly  on  the  gracious  curves,  and 
we  think  we  have  seen  "  Menken  ",  until  we  take  up  the  next 
picture  and  behold  her  lying  full  length  on  the  tiger-skin,  the 
wonderful  limbs  outspread.  .  .  . 

"  Thou  wert  fair  in  the  fearless  old  fashion, 
And  thy  limbs  are  as  melodies  yet  " — 

inevitably  the  lines  drift  into  our  memory,  and  others  come  along 
with  them : 

"  When  these  are  gone  by  with  their  glories, 
What  shall  rest  of  thee  then,  what  remain  ? 
O  mystic  and  sombre  Dolores, 
Our  Lady  of  Pain  ?  "  .  .  . 

This  much   remains.     Adah   Dolores   Isaacs  Menken   was    the 
woman  who  inspired  that  magnificent  lyric. 

Such  was  her  glory.  She  had  no  other.  Notoriety  she  had, 
friends,  admirers,  lovers,  she  had,  beauty  of  face  and  form,  beauty 
too  indeed  of  soul,  mind,  heart — and  yet,  what  utter  ruin  !  /  try 
to  bloom  up  into  the  light :  that  phrase,  from  all  the  welter  of 
phrases  in  her  Infelicia,  is  the  one  which  brings  the  pang  for  us. 


Her   baptismal    name   was    Adelaide:     her    father's    name 

♦  Lent  by    Mr.  G.  R.  Sims  from  his  collection  of  letters,   MSS.,  and 
photographs  of  Adah  Isaacs  Menken. 


Sm  ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN 

M*^Cord.  She  was  born  on  June  15th,  1835,  near  New  Orleans, 
at  a  place  then  known  as  Chartrain,  and  now  as  Milneburg. 
Her  father  was  well-off;  there  were  three  daughters,  of  whom 
she  was  the  eldest.  When  she  was  eight  years  old,  he  died ; 
reverses  had  come  already,  and  now  came  almost  destitution. 
What  to  do  }  The  widow  at  first  felt  hopeless.  Adelaide  was 
clever,  studious — piquante  and  fascinating  as  well,  but  she  was 
only  eight  years  old.  It  seemed  somewhat  early  for  her  to  begin 
the  battle  of  life.  Moreover,  what  could  even  brilliant  little 
Adelaide  do  .^  .  .  .  Suddenly,  inspiration  came — and  doubtless 
brought  a  pang  with  it ;  but  the  mother  recognised  the  inevitable, 
recognised  too,  it  may  be,  the  predestination !  M^Cord  had  loved 
above  all  other  arts  the  art  of  dancing.  All  his  little  girls  had  been 
taught — and  taught  seriously  ;  and  all  had  made  astonishing 
progress,  Adelaide  naturally  being  first.  It  must  have  been  the 
day  for  infant  prodigies  in  New  Orleans,  for  Mrs.  M'^Cord 
actually  succeeded  in  getting  engagements  for  all  three  children, 
who  soon  became  great  favourites  under  the  soubriquet  of  the 
Theodore  Sisters. 

That  was  the  beginning.  From  the  first,  Adelaide  knew  the 
taste  of  popularity,  for  of  the  favourite  three  she  was  the 
favourite.  And  there  too,  in  that  early  period,  we  find  the 
double  thread,  for  our  eldest  Theodore  Sister  was  for  ever  at  her 
books — studying  Greek,  Latin,  Hebrew,  German,  Spanish,  and 
*'  translating  Homer's  Iliad".  That  must  have  brought  a  great 
moment,  for  we  read  that  the  small  person  of  twelve  "  completed 
her  arduous  task  with  triumph  "  !  Somehow  the  little  girls  who 
do  this  sort  of  thing  are  never  lucky.  Adelaide  M*^Cord  began 
her  career  as  a  grown-up  by  marrying  at  seventeen  "  a  nobody 
whose  very  name  has  been  forgotten,  who  treated  her  cruelly, 
and  finally  abandoned  her."  We  incline  to  believe  that  marriage 
at  seventeen  may  be  reckoned,  however  it  turn  out,  among 
misfortunes.  Knowledge  so  soon  is  bad  enough  ;  disillusion- 
ment so  soon — that  hardly  bears  thinking  of.  .  .  .  But  she  had 
youth  at  any  rate  on  her  side  ;  and  she  had  beauty,  courage, 
ardour.  What  did  she  do  with  all  these .?  We  read  of  no 
anguish,  we  read  indeed  of  immediate  triumphs  of  the  footlights  : 
first,  she  flashes  out  as  *'  Queen  of  the  Plaza  at  Havana  ".     The 


ADAH  ISAACS  MENKEN  331 

phrase  makes  its  picture  for  us  on  the  spot,  a  picture  of  sunlight, 
brown  faces,  dark  eyes,  mantillas,  long  lazy  days,  cigar-smoke — 
and  the  morality  which  goes  with  all  that,  drifting  like  the 
smoke,  easy  like  the  life.  Then  swiftly  with  another  phrase,  the 
picture  changes :  "  Liberty,  Texas — and  a  newspaper ".  Only 
two  elements  remain :  the  tobacco-smoke  and  the  morality  that 
drifted  with  it !  The  newspaper  was  short-lived,  but  she  never 
lost  her  fancy  for  that  form  of  activity — it  seemed  to  represent  in 
her  mind  an  outlet,  a  way  of  escape,  from  those  footlights  where 
she  failed  always,  despite  her  strange  successes,  to  find  any  sort 
of  happiness. 

New  Orleans,  teaching  French  and  Latin  in  a  girls'  school, 
and  the  publication  of  a  volume  of  poems  came  next ;  then 
Texas  again,  and  at  Galveston,  in  1856  (when  she  was  twenty- 
one),  marriage  again  :  the  one  marriage,  it  would  seem,  with 
which,  short-lived  as  the  union  was,  there  came  some  genuine 
happiness.  For  she  kept  his  name,  Isaac  Menken,  to  the  end, 
adding  an  "  s  "  to  the  "  Isaac  " ;  she  altered  her  own  name  of 
Adelaide  to  the  Jewish  Adah  ;  most  striking  tribute  of  all,  she 
adopted  Menken's  faith  and  died  an  ardent  Jewess.  "  She  must 
at  that  time,"  writes  a  friend  of  those  days,  one  Celia  Logan, 
"  have  been  one  of  the  most  peerless  beauties  that  ever  dazzled 
human  eyes "  ;  Menken  was  remarkably  handsome  also,  and 
moreover,  remarkably  talented — a  musician,  a  composer.  He 
had  fallen  desperately  in  love  with  her,  and  had  married  her 
against  his  family's  desire.  Mystery  envelops  the  breaking  of 
this  bond,  but  the  same  friend  tells  us  that  "in  after-years, 
whoever  threw  a  stone  at  Adah,  it  was  never  Isaac  Menken,  and 
she  always  retained  his  name.  ...  so  much  of  the  glamour  of 
first  love  hung  over  them  both." 

It  was  at  this  time  that  she  wrote  a  **  magnificent  article  " 
in  the  New  York  Churchman  upon  the  admission  of  Baron 
Rothschild  to  Parliament,  which  was  translated  into  several 
languages.  Rothschild  wrote  himself  to  thank  her  for  it,  calling 
her  "  the  inspired  Deborah  of  her  race."  Thus,  what  with  the 
translations  and  the  Baron's  glittering  journalese,  we  see  that 
Adah  was  tasting  success  again.  She  was  plainly  in  full  career 
of  journalism,  for  at  Cincinnati,  she  almost  editedijT'^^  Israelite^ 


ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN 

and  there  was  another  joy  besides,  the  study  of  sculpture,  which, 
when  the  Mazeppa  days  arrived,  proved  very  useful  for  her  poses. 
.  .  .  This  we  take  to  be  the  happiest  time  of  her  life.  She  was 
in  the  flower  of  her  beauty :  dark,  moderately  tall,  graceful  and 
most  exquisitely  fashioned,  with  great  melancholy  eyes,  "  which 
strike  the  beholder  and  charm  him  irresistibly."  Yes,  happy, 
one  likes  to  think — although  it  could  not  last,  for  with  her 
"  nought  could  endure  but  mutability." 

For  three  years  we  hear  nothing  definite,  but  it  would  seem 
that  she  returned  to  the  stage,  and  plainly  the  Menken  marriage 
was  done  with,  for  about  this  time,  she  met  and  married  (on 
April  3,  1859)  John  C.  Heenan,  the  "Benicia  Boy",  a  prize- 
fighter, antagonist  of  Tom  Sayers  "  in  the  desperate  contest  for 
the  championship  of  the  world  in  i860."  Adah's  third  attempt 
quite  failed  to  keep  the  proverbial  promise  of  good  fortune. 
Two  years  later,  we  find  her  trying  again  with  Robert  H.  Newell, 
"  Orpheus  C.  Kerr  "  (Ofifice-Seeker),  the  satirist  of  the  American 
Civil  War ;  and,  nearly  a  year  after,  getting  her  divorce  by  an 
Indiana  Court  from  Heenan,  "  who  had  treated  her  in  a  brutal 
and  ignominious  manner."  Well !  it  was  America,  and  she  was 
"  Menken  ",  and  one  husband  was  a  Benicia  Boy  .  .  .  yet  there 
are  few  records  of  free-love  which  offend  the  taste  as  this  does. 
Two  husbands  at  a  time  :  "  deux  vtaris  d  la  fois  " — that  refrain 
would  have  seemed  scabrous  even  to  Beranger!  The  endless- 
chain  marriages  of  America — so  to  term  them — drag  very  heavily, 
very  wearisomely,  upon  the  sense  of  humour,  do  they  not } 

The  punning  pseudonymist,  "  Office-Seeker ",  in  his  turn, 
failed  to  make  her  happy,  and — shall  we  finish  the  husbands  ? — 
there  came  in  1866  the  help  of  another  Indiana  Court,  and 
(in  this  case,  subsequently)  another  husband :  James  or  Paul 
Barclay,  "a  noted  Wall  Street  puncher."*  He  was  very  rich, 
but  not  long  after  their  marriage,  he  "  threw  out  ",*  and  deserted 
her.  In  addition  to  his  punching-glories,  James  (or  Paul)  has 
another  title  to  fame :  he  was  Adah's  Last  Husband. 

*  We  hope  some  of  our  readers  may  be  able  to  translate  "  Johnnie 
Gideon  "  (^Era  Almanack,  1868),  from  whom  we  deferentially  quote.  We 
acknowledge  our  own  entire  ignorance. 


ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN  333 

It  is  ill  jesting,  though  very  anger  makes  us  jest.  How  to 
sympathise  ?  Pity  we  can  give  ;  sympathy —  ?  And  alas  !  if 
anything  from  women  were  wanted,  sympathy  could  alone  have 
been  that  thing.  But  no  woman's  name  comes  into  her  life  at  all. 
Her  sisters  we  never  hear  of  again,  after  the  childish  days ;  her 
mother — one  knows  not !  Possibly  the  best  that  women  could 
give  her  was  pity,  and  pity,  we  may  be  sure,  she  would  have 
none  of  without  sympathy.  .  .  .  Before  we  dismiss  the  husbands, 
let  us  speak  of  the  jest  which  most  frequently  recurs  on  this 
subject.  "  Adah  of  the  Seven  Husbands  " :  that  is  its  original 
form ;  but  the  better  to  point  the  aptness  of  the  Dolores  poem, 
it  is  often  insinuated  that  the  sub-title,  Notre-Dame  des  Sept 
DouleurSy  has  reference  to  her  matrimonial  trials.  The  humour 
of  great  poets  not  seldom  has  these  crudities :  on  that  score  we 
are  at  least  quiescent — but  in  all  the  writings  about  her  which 
are  scattered  through  the  American  and  English  Press,  we  have 
searched  in  vain  for  the  record  of  more  than  five  husbands ! 
Unless  the  chroniclers  lost  count  with  Barclay,  the  too- 
symmetrical  Number  Seven  must  be  renounced.  We  are 
inclined,  ourselves,  to  be  content  with  the  five — all  of  whom  were 
living  at  the  time  of  her  death. 

It  was  in  1861  that  her  real  career  may  be  said  to  have 
begun.  In  the  "  legitimate "  drama  she  was  quite  hopelessly 
bad.  Queen  of  the  Plaza  she  had  been — Frenzy  of  'Frisco, 
Darling  of  Dayton  (where  she  was  made  Honorary  Captain  of 
the  Light  Guard)  *  ;  streets  in  mining-towns,  nay !  the  mining- 
companies  themselves  had  been  called  by  her  name,  silver  lingots 
had  been  presented  in  one  place,  fifty  shares  in  another,  worth  one 
hundred  dollars  a  share.f  .  .  .  All  this — without  one  role  recorded ! 
Plain  is  the  inference,  we  fear ;  her  own  wild  words  confirm  it. 

" '  My  heritage  ! '  it  is  to  live  within 
The  marts  of  Pleasure  and  Gain,  yet  be 
No  willing  worshipper  at  either  shrine  ; 
To  think,  and  speak,  and  act,  not  for  my  pleasure 
But  others'.  .  .  .  Fortune's  toy  ! 

*  **A  full  length  portrait  with  sword  and  epaulettes  (presented  by 
soldiers)  is  actually  to  be  seen  there."  .  .  .  (Pamphlet  issued  by  E.  T. 
Smith,  at  the  time  of  her  engagement  at  Astley's). 

t  The  shares  went  up  to  1000  dollars  each  1 


334  ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN 

Mine  to  stand  on  the  brink  of  life 
One  little  moment  while  the  fresh'ning  breeze 
Steals  o'er  the  languid  lip  and  brow,  telling 
Of  forest-leaf  and  ocean-wave,  and  happy 
Homes  and  cheerful  toil ;  and  bringing  gently 
To  this  wearied  heart  its  long-forgotten 
Dreams  of  gladness. 
But  turning  the  fevered  cheek  to  meet  the  soft  kiss  of  the  winds, 
my  eyes  look  to  the  sky,  where  I  send  up  my  soul  in  thanks.     The 
sky  is  clouded — no  stars — no  music — the  heavens  are  hushed. 

My  poor  soul  comes  back  to  me,  weary  and  disappointed." 


Thus,  incessantly,  interminably,  she  lamented.  It  is  always 
the  one  wail,  however  the  setting  may  vary.  The  incongruity  of 
her  fate  with  her  aspirations  obsessed  her:  she  could  think  of 
nothing  else,  and  she  could  do  little  else  but  think  of  it.  Some- 
times, turning  the  pages  of  the  monotonous  tiny  book,  one  stirs 
impatiently,  doubting  if  she  ever  "  tried  "  at  all,  suspecting  that 
when  a  mood  came  over  her,  Adah  would  thrust  some  money 
into  someone's,  anyone's,  hands — for  she  was  utterly  reckless  in 
her  unbounded  generosity — and  then  would  go  and  write  a  poem  : 

"  Lost— lost— lost ! 

The  little  golden  key  which  the  first  angel  entrusted  to  me  "  .  .  . 
"  O  !  angels,  will  ye  never  sweep  the  drifts  from  my  door  ? 

Will  ye  never  wipe  the  gathering  rust  from  the  hinges  ? "  .  .  . 

But  then,  the  utter  pathos  of  her  impotence  overwhelms  us 
once  more  ;  for  it  was  she  who  could  not  sweep  away  the  drifts, 
who  could  not  wipe  the  rust  from  the  hinges — she  of  whom  the 
great  poet  asked  : 

"  Who  gave  thee  thy  wisdom  ?    What  stories 
That  stung  thee,  what  visions  that  smote  ? 
Wert  thou  pure  and  a  maiden,  Dolores, 
When  desire  took  thee  first  by  the  throat  ? " 

We  think  of  the  terrible  answering  to   that   terrible  question- 
ing. ..."  It  makes  a  goblin  of  the  sun." 

Mazeppa — her  Mascot,  as  one  might  say,  if  luck  had  ever 
seemed  to  come   to   her — was  first  tried   at  Albany,  in    1861. 


ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN  335 

Hitherto  a  man  had  always  played  the  part,  but  the  Manager  of 
the  Green  Street  Theatre  there  was  "  tickled  "  by  the  notion  of  a 
woman-Tartar  bound  to  the  back  of  the  fiery  steed,  and  con- 
sented to  give  her  a  dibuL  She  arrived  on  the  Saturday  before 
the  performance ;  the  company  was  gathered  for  rehearsal,  and 
it  was  found  that  Miss  Menken  did  not  know  one  word  of  her 
part.  (She  never  did  learn  the  words  of  any  of  her  parts.)  So 
the  company  was  dispersed  ;  she  was  said  to  be  very  tired — and 
then,  she  and  "  Captain "  Smith  got  to  work.  The  trained 
Mazeppa-horse  was  called  in  its  private  life,  "  Belle  Beauty  " — an 
invention  which  gives  us  instantly  a  flashlight  upon  the  literary 
quality  of  this  travesty  of  Byron.  And  to  Belle  Beauty's  back 
she  was  to  be  strapped,  and  the  strap  was  to  be  run  through  a  loop 
in  the  band  that  was  securely  fastened  round  the  horse's  body. 
The  performer  held  the  ends  in  her  hands,  and  the  closer  they 
were  drawn,  the  closer  she  was  held  to  the  horse  ;  directly  she  let 
them  go,  she  was  free.  Smith  gave  her  an  exhibition  of  how  it 
was  done  :  the  horse  sprang  forward  from  the  footlights  up  an 
eighteen-inch  "  run "  upon  a  painted  mountain.  She  watched 
the  feat,  all  pale  and  trembling.  "  I'd  give  every  dollar  I  am 
worth  if  I  was  sure  I  could  do  that."  "  No  danger ! "  affirmed 
vSmith,  but  she  was  not  reassured.  She  begged  that  the  horse, 
instead  of  starting  from  the  footlights,  should  be  led  up  to  the 
"  run ".  It  seems  extraordinary  that  Smith,  who  must  have 
known  his  business,  should  have  humoured  her,  but  he  did — with 
the  appalling  result  that  the  disconcerted,  trained  animal  went 
only  part  of  the  way  up,  then  "  with  an  awful  crash,  plunged  off 
the  planking  on  to  the  staging  and  timber  beneath."  Adah  was 
lifted,  almost  lifeless,  the  blood  streaming  from  her  shoulder. 
By  some  miracle,  she  was  not  seriously  injured,  though  a  doctor, 
hastily  summoned,  forbade  her  to  appear  on  Monday.  "  Not 
appear  on  Monday !  I'm  going  on  with  the  rehearsal  now!' 
cries  Mazeppa,  and  so  she  did — performing  the  feat  quite  safely ; 
and,  on  Monday,  rousing  a  packed  house  to  enthusiasm. 

Pittsburg,  Cincinnati,  St.  Louis,  New  York,  followed — then 
in  1864,  London  and  Astley's. 

London  behaved  most  characteristically.  Her  advent  was 
well  heralded  by  ostentatious  shuddering  of  the  Press.     There 


336  ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN 

was  at  that  time  a  prominent  theatrical  organ,  The  Orchestra,  and 
it  was  in  The  Orchestras  pages  that  the  ground  was  prepared  for 
her  notoriety.  On  August  20,  1864,  it  came  out  with  the  most 
effective  shudder.  "  The  Naked  Drama  "  :  that  abracadabra  was 
well  used.  "  There  is  a  depth  of  degradation  in  the  drama  which 
England  has  not  yet  reached  " — that  also  saw  the  light.  "  We 
hope  that  Mr.  E.  T.  Smith  will  keep  this  exhibition  from  Astley's 
...  a  performance  which  will  be  hooted  everywhere,  save  in  a 
Yankee  audience  or  among  kindred  spirits  in  a  Sepoy  com- 
munity." Nothing  could  be  better!  And  when  the  following 
week,  there  was  printed  a  noble,  dignified  letter  from  the  Living 
Scandal  herself:  "I  have  been  long  a  student  of  sculpture  .  .  . 
my  attitudes  are  selected  from  the  works  of  Canova.  .  .  .  Will 
your  critic  suspend  his  judgment  until  he  has  seen  me  ? "  .  .  . 
why !  The  Orchestra's  young  man  must  have  felt  that  much  had 
been  accomplished,  and  Mr.  E.  T.  Smith,  that  base  corrupter  of 
England,  and  our  Mazeppa,  that  deep  student  of  Canova,  must 
have  pronounced  it  "  bully  for  him  " — and  bullier  still  for  them- 
selves. When  in  the  first  week  of  October,  1864,  the  Naked 
Drama  began,  that  smart  young  man  on  The  OrcJiestra  knew 
exactly  the  right  attitude  to  assume.  He  must  have  been 
balked  of  his  shudder — for  really  there  was  nothing  at  all  shame- 
less about  Mazeppa's  white  linen  maillot — but  he  knew  a  good 
deal  better  than  to  say  so.  "  It  is  not  so  bad  as  it  might  be,  but 
it  is  bad  at  best "  :  that  would  do  very  well.  A  certain  scorn 
was  the  note.  The  "  fearful  rocks  "  were  very  ordinary  mountain 
passes ;  the  steed's  hoofs  rang  very  hollow  on  the  boards,  and 
the  fiery  courser  seemed  mildly  surprised  at  the  torches  waved  in 
his  face.  The  play  was  not  lively ;  its  chief  charm  was  the 
scanty  costume  of  Miss  Menken.  "  The  bill  informs  us  that  she 
ascends  fearful  precipices  and  fights  fearful  combats  herself, 
which  has  hitherto  been  done  by  deputy.  As  she  has  nothing 
else  to  do,  we  cannot  imagine  any  deputy  acting  for  her."  .  .  . 
And  then,  next  week,  a  villainous  punning  couplet : 

"  Lady  Godiva's  far  outdone, 

And  Peeping  Tom's  an  arrant  duffer  ; 
Menken  outstrips  them  both  in  one 
At  Astley's,  now  the  Opera  Buffer.^^ 


ADAH  ISAACS  MENKEN  337 

The  brilliancy  of  this  is  so  dazzling  that  nobody,  we  imagine, 
could  attempt  to  explain  it ;  so  it  may  have  been  accounted  a 
failure,  and  on  October  29th  appeared  a  masterly  paragraph : 
"  Probably  American  ladies  and  children  could  go  to  Astley's, 
but  English  ladies  and  children  have  weaker  nerves."  One 
knows  what  would  happen  nowadays  after  such  a  hint ;  in  those 
days,  the  result  was  what  we  have  already  seen — to  fill  the 
boxes  at  Astley's  with  elderly  gentlemen,  who  no  doubt  left 
discontented  wives  and  daughters  at  home,  wondering  what  "  the 
creature "  was  like.  .  .  .  But  The  Orchestra  had  not  exhausted 
its  ingenuity  yet.  Shortly  there  began  to  appear  a  serial 
entitled  AdaEs  Life^  founded  upon  the  pamphlet  issued  by 
Smith  before  she  appeared.  The  pamphlet  was  a  mass  of  lies, 
and  th^feuilleton  a  mass  of  insults.  Few  things  more  objection- 
able have,  we  incline  to  think,  been  published  in  England :  The 
Hawk^  perhaps,  or  The  Baty  or  some  such  defunct  rag,  may  have 
emulated,  but  scarcely  excelled. 

In  a  word,  "  the  Press,  one  and  all,  condemned  Mazeppa  " — 
very  skilfully  indeed.  Nevertheless,  there  soon  appeared  in  The 
Orchestra! s  columns  two  little  poems  from  "  the  creature's  "  pen 
— the  verses  to  Adelina  Patti  (May  13,  1865),  and  a  little  lyric, 
there  called  Never  Forgotten ;  in  her  book — A  Memory.  For 
long  she  had  been  writing,  and  publishing  in  American  news- 
papers, rhymed  lyrics  and  those  strange,  unrhymed  effusions 
which  form  the  greater  part  of  the  much-discussed  volume, 
Infelicia,  This  is  a  tiny  green  book,  with  no  publisher's  name 
upon  its  title-page.  It  has  been  the  subject  of  keen  con- 
troversy ;  its  contents  have  been  attributed  to  two  of  her 
friends — one,  a  certain  John  Thomson,  of  whom  we  shall  speak 
later;  the  other,  Mr.  Swinburne.  How  the  latter  supposition 
ever  sprang  into  being  in  any  mortal  brain  is  beyond  our 
comprehension.  Nowhere  is  the  faintest  trace  of  such  great 
influence  to  be  found.  The  rhymed  lyrics  do  not  call  for 
any  serious  attention,  although  W.  M.  Rossetti  included  in  his 
Anthology  of  American  verse,  those  entitled  One  Year  Ago^ 
Aspiration y  and  Infelix.  One  Year  Ago  never  rises  above 
the  level  of  the  Poets'  Corner  in  a  provincial  newspaper ; 
Aspiration  scarcely  reaches  that ;  Infelix  has  pathos,  but  little 


338  ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN 

beauty  either  of  expression  or  workmanship.  One  phrase, 
perhaps : 

"  I  stand  a  wreck  on  Error's  shore, 
A  spectre  not  within  the  door  "... 

for  the  rest,  it  is  merely  the  old  wail,  expressed  in  terms  thread- 
bare before  she  was  born.  We  think  of  Swinburne's  music, 
richness,  strength — the  lyric  joy  and  pain,  as  of  the  sun  over  a 
tossed  sea  .  .  .  and  amazement  at  the  power  of  gossip  to  blind 
men's  critical  faculties  is  our  dominant  feeling !  That  these  little 
tight,  immovable  verses,  this  outworn  language  and  these  feeble 
forms  should  be  attributed  to  his  influence  is  absurd  enough ; 
that  they  should  be  attributed  to  himself,  is  surely  the  last  word 
of  ineptitude  in  literary  appreciation.  W.  M.  Rossetti,  indeed, 
abandoning  that  theory,  speaks  of  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  It  is  only 
less  grotesque.  Here  is  no  melody  at  all — to  stop  short  of  Poe's 
melody !  Of  the  unrhymed  irregular  forms,  better  things  can  be 
said.  They  have  a  certain  undisciplined  lyric  quality.  To  Walt 
Whitman's  influence  they  were  inevitably  traced  back.  But 
there  is  nothing  of  Walt  Whitman,  save  the  irregularity.  His 
niagnificent  energy,  and  the  magnificent  rhythms  which  belong 
to  it.  .  .  .  No !  The  cuttings  from  the  American  newspapers — 
"  long  before  she  came  to  England  " — are  superfluous  :  Swin- 
burne did  not  write,  nor  help  in  writing,  Infelicia ;  Poe  did  not 
influence,  Whitman  did  not  influence.  What  there  is,  is  all 
her  own. 

Or  possibly,  John  Thomson's — that  devoted,  chivalrous 
Bohemian  of  whom  we  have  already  spoken.  Mr.  Ellis  H. 
Ellis,  in  a  letter  to  the  Referee  (Dec.  27, 1903),  says  that  Thomson 
"  always  bristled  with  poetry.  .  .  .  He  breathes  on  every  page  : 
he,  and  he  alone,  wrote  Infelicia"  This  is  categorical  enough, 
but  it  would  seem  that  Mr.  Ellis  was,  partially  at  any  rate, 
mistaken,  for  there  is  the  testimony  of  the  newspaper-cuttings 
(from  American  journals)  of  nearly  every  poem  in  the  little  green 
book.  Mr.  George  R.  Sims  has  a  valuable  collection  of  these, 
and  also  of  the  MSS.  of  Infelicia — most  of  them  written  in  a 
difficult,  pale,  sprawling  hand  (which  does  not  much  resemble 
Adah   Menken's),  and  one,  the  Infelix  lyric  which  closes   the 


ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN  339 

volume,  in  an  exquisite,  meticulous  script  which  is  known  to  be 
John  Thomson's.  For  ourselves,  we  feel  convinced  that  Adah 
wrote  them  :  everything  that  is  known  of  her  makes  it  probable. 
These  wild,  unlovely  things  express  precisely  the  degree  of 
culture,  of  expression,  to  which  she  had  attained. 

Thomson  was  at  the  time  Mr.  Swinburne's  private  secretary. 
He  had  been  "  discovered  "  in  his  mother's  lodging-house  by  W. 
Savile  Clarke  (a  lodger),  reciting  Paradise  Lost  to  the  black- 
beetles  in  the  kitchen  at  midnight.  "  He  went  on  for  a  quarter- 
of-an-hour  " — a  youth  of  eighteen,  with  black  hair  and  big  dark 
eyes  :  Savile  Clarke  listened,  wondered,  finally  got  tired,  and 
went  to  bed.  But  he  told  Swinburne,  who  was  interested,  and 
engaged  the  boy  as  his  private  secretary.  "  John  would  recite 
quite  suddenly,  would  give  no  warning.  He  knew  more  poetry 
by  heart  than  ever  man  did  before,"  says  Mr.  Sims  in  the 
Referee ;  "  he  was  a  Bohemian  of  the  old  school,  the  gentlest, 
most  amiable  man  that  ever  lived."  Thomson  came  in  later  life 
to  know  Adah  Menken,  and  the  result  is  easy  to  foresee.  A 
romantic,  poetry-stricken  young  man — a  beautiful,  passionate, 
misunderstood  woman  !  The  poetry-stricken  youth  is  quickly 
the  love-stricken ;  and  the  beautiful  woman  loved  poetry  too — 
she  was  among  the  first  to  recognise  the  genius  of  Mr.  Swin- 
burne. .  .  .  All  the  rest  follows  as  a  matter-of-course.  The 
young  Swinburne  comes  to  her  rooms  (with  other  brilliant  men), 
meets  her  at  Bohemian  dinners,  writes  a  dainty  French  trifle  in 
her  Album  (she  kept  an  Album  for  her  distinguished  men's 
contributions),  calling  it  Dolorida : — 

"  Combien  de  temps,  dis,  la  belle, 
Dis,  veux-tu  m'etre  fidele  ? — 
Pour  une  nuit,  pour  un  jour, 
Mon  amour. 

L'amour  nous  flatte  et  nous  touche, 
Du  doigt,  de  Tceil,  de  la  bouche, 
Pour  un  jour,  pour  une  nuit, 
Et  s'enfuit."  * 


*  The   verses  may  be  read,  in  a  dainty  vellum-bound  volume,  all  by 
themselves — ^two  short  stanzas,  and  the  binding  filled  up  with  blank  pages  ! — 


340  ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN 

And  later  came  that  haunting  Dolores  lyric,  when  the  thought  of 
the  magnetic,  unhappy  creature  mingled  in  his  brain  with  the 
magic  in  his  soul  of  his  own  unsurpassed  song. 

"  Seven  sorrows  the  priests  give  their  Virgin, 
But  thy  sins,  which  are  seventy  times  seven, 
Seven  ages  would  fail  thee  to  purge  in, 
And  then  they  would  haunt  thee  in  heaven.  .  .  . 
O  mystical  rose  of  the  mire, 
O  house  not  of  gold  but  of  gain, 

O  splendid  and  sterile  Dolores  * 
Our  Lady  of  Pain  !  " 


Is  there  any  need  to  enquire  further  ? 


"  One  of  the  most  noble-hearted  women  I  ever  met  in  my 
whole  life  " — so  wrote  one  friend  of  those  days  to  Mr.  George  R. 
Sims  in  1905.  "And  with  warm  pleasure  I  remember  many 
many  gentle,  womanly  acts  of  goodness  and  loving-kindness  done 
by  her."  The  letter  lies  before  us  as  we  write,  with  its  further 
reference  to  "  dear  gentle  John  Thomson."  .  .  .  That  is  a  little 
glory,  too,  is  it  not }  to  have  such  remembrance  after  thirty-seven 
years.  /  try  to  bloom  up  into  the  light :  the  poignant  little  phrase 
"  came  true  "  sometimes.  She  bloomed  up  into  the  light  for  the 
kindly  hearts  that  never,  never  would  she  draw  nearest  to  her 
own. 


On  a  day  in  1868,  Thomson  waited  for  her  by  appointment 
in  John  Camden  Hotten's  office,  to  consult  further  about  some  of 
the  arrangements  for  the  book,  which  Hotten  was  to  publish  for 
her — and  did  publish,  though  without  his  imprint,  after  her  death. 
So  she  never  saw  the  little  green  volume — another  sadness,  is  it 
not  ?  For  she  was  so  eager  about  it — so  interested !  Mr.  Sims 
kindly  allows  us  to  copy  two  letters,  given  him  by  Mr.  Andrew 
Chatto : 

at  the  British  Museum:    Stanzas  in  the  Album  of  Adah  Isaacs  Menkeft 
(privately  printed). 

*  We  quote  from  the  first  edition  of  Poems  and  Ballads. 


ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN  341 

"  Wednesday 
"  Dear  Mr.  Hotten, 

"  I  am  much  pleased  with  the  interview  between  your- 
self and  Mr.  Ellington  yesterday.  Your  ideas  are  all  excellent, 
and  I  am  confident  that  we  will  have  a  grand  success !  I  will 
call  at  your  office  to-morrow  about  two  o'clock,  if  you  will  be  so 
kind  as  to  be  'at  home'  to  me.  I  am  anxious  to  see  the 
designs  that  are  to  be  engraved  ;  also,  I  would  be  glad  if  I  might 
look  over  the  later  proofs  again,  as  I  was  very  ill  when  they 
were  corrected  for  me. 

"You  know  I  never  really  liked  the  idea  of  my  portrait 
being  printed,  but  I  am  willing  to  submit  to  your  judgment 
in  all  pertaining  to  our  mutual  interest.  The  proofs  of  the 
portrait  you  sent  me  are  wonderfully  well  engraved. 

"  Believe  me,  dear  Sir, 
"  Yours  truly, 


''Menken'' 


(There  is  no  A.  and  no  L  !) 


Again : 


"  Wednesday 


"  Dear  Mr.  Hotten, 

"  I  am  glad  we  have  found  another  copy  of  *  Answer 
Me ',  I  hope  you  will  get  it  a  good  place  in  the  book.  It  is  a 
poem  that  /  like,  and  I  believe  you  will.  If  you  believe  in  my 
idea  of  omitting  the  *  Karayah  to  Carl ',  you  might  put  *  Answer 
Me '  there.  However  I  am  sure  you  will  do  the  best  you  can 
for  it.  Can  you  get  *  Aspiration '  in  ?  Do  try.  When  are  we 
to  see  the  final  proofs  ?  I  am  anxious  to  get  the  book  out.  I 
fear  you  put  others  out  before  me.  In  that  case,  we  shall  cer- 
tainly quarrel,  and  that  would  be  vastly  disagreeable  to  me.  Do 
hurry  those  printers,  and  I  shall  like  you  better  than  I  do 
now.  When  you  have  an  idle  day,  let  me  come  and  see  more  of 
your  wonderful  old  books. 

"  Yours  faithfully, 

"  Menken'' 


342  ADAH   ISAACS   MENKEN 

The  signature  is  written  in  huge  sloping  letters  :  at  its  quaint- 
ness  in  style  we  have  already  hinted.  .  .  .  No  !  she  never  saw  the 
little  book,  with  its  gigantic  facsimile  MENKEN  on  the  cover,  and 
its  dedication  to  Charles  Dickens,  and  the  letter  from  the  great 
man  :  "  Many  such  enclosures  "  (she  had  sent  him  some  verses) 
"  come  to  me,  but  few  so  pathetically  written  and  fewer  still  so 
modestly  sent."  .  .  . 

Thomson  waited  two  hours  that  day  in  1868,  then  wrote  a 
note  to  be  given  her  when  she  called.  She  never  called.  Mr. 
Sims  saw  the  note  recently  at  Mr.  Chatto's — the  little  tender 
letter  that  she  never  read.  .  .  .  Did  Thomson  see  her  again  1 
We  know  not.  She  had  left  England  suddenly,  mysteriously; 
had  gone  to  Paris,  to  rehearse  for  a  performance  of  a  play  called 
Les  Pirates  de  la  Savane.  Consumption  struck  her  down  there  :  the 
seeds  had  long  since  been  sown.  She  knew  she  was  doomed  some 
time  before  she  died.  A  friend  told  her  she  looked  ill.  "  Yes — 
I'm  shot,"  she  answered.  By  August  10,  1868,  she  was  utterly 
vanquished.  She  never  rallied,  but  died  quite  peacefully  "  in  an 
attic  on  the  fifth  floor  of  a  low  lodging  in  the  Rue  de  Bondy, 
opposite  the  stage-door  of  the  Porte  St.  Martin" — watched 
through  the  night  by  a  devoted  friend,  Thomas  Buchanan  Read, 
the  American  poet.  They  buried  her  in  the  Jewish  cemetery  at 
Mont-Parnasse  ;  her  grave  is  covered  by  a  slab  of  grey  stone, 
headed  by  a  small  grey  monument.  At  the  top  is  a  funeral  urn,  on 
one  side  of  it  are  the  words  of  her  favourite  saying,  Thou  knowest : 
on  the  other, "  Adah  Isaacs  Menken,  bom  in  Louisiana,  U.S.  of  A. 
Died  in  Paris,  August  10,  1868." 


"  No  soul  shall  tell  nor  lip  shall  number 
The  names  and  tribes  of  you  that  slumber, 

No  memory,  no  memorial. 
'  Thou  knowest ' — who  shall  say  thou  knowest  ? 
There  is  none  highest  and  none  lowest, 
An  end,  an  end,  an  end  of  all." 


In  the  exquisite  Ilicet  stands  that  phrase,  so  quoted — the 
phrase  she  long  had  chosen  for  her  grave.  .  .  .  But  we  think  of 


ADAH   ISAACS  MENKEN  343 

her  /  try  to  bloom  up  into  the  light — and  search  the  stanzas  of  that 
perfect  music  for  a  tenderer  word. 

"  Good-night,  good  sleep,  good  rest  from  sorrow 
To  these  that  shall  not  have  good-morrow, 
The  gods  be  gentle  to  all  these." 


INDEX 


Abel,  Von,  75 

Abrant^s,  Duchesse  d'  (Permon,  Laure), 
184  note,  188 

,  Memoir Sy  184  note 

"Adalgisa"  (role  in  Norma:  see  Bel- 
lini), 242,  248 

Aglietti  (Doctor),  282 

Aiguillon,  d',  130-3 ;  199,  208 

,  Duchesse  d',  134 

country-house  (Rueil),  134 

Aigues'MorteSy  147 

Aix,  54,  64 

en-Savoie^  1 94 

AjacciOy  179 

Albany,  334 

,  Green  Street  Theatre,  335 

Albany,  Duchess  of,  209 

,  Countess  of.   i^See  LODISE  OF  Stol- 

berg-Gedern.) 

,  Count  of.  {See  Stuart,  Charles 

Edward.) 

Albaro  (at  Genoa),  294-295 

Al^gre,  Marquis  d',  38,  and  note 

Alexandre,  48 

Alicante,  65 

Alfieri,  Vittorio,  198,  205-212 

(his)  Autobiography,  206,  208 

Allainval,    Abbe    d',    216,    217,     226. 
("George  Wink.") 

"Allemania,"  75-6 

Allori,  Alessandro  (II  Bronzino),  25 
'     Almanack  de  Liige,  134 

Amboise,  2,  13 
;     America,  68,  77;  249  ;  264,  273 ;  332, 
342 

;     ,  South,  294 

i     **  Amina  "  (  role  in  La  Sonnambula:  see 
i        Bellini),  273 

Amours  du  Grand  Alcantre,  Les,  39 
I     Amsterdam,  317 

Ancona,  280 

Ancona,  March  of,  201 

Andelot,  d',  98 

Anet  (Castle  of),  7,  10,  11,  13,  15,  17 

Andronica,  239 

\\  345 


Andronica,  "  Vannese  alberghi  in  petto  " 

Dnti/rom),  239 
Angouleme,  Due  d*  (later  Dauphin),  167, 

172 
,  Duchesse  d'  (later  Dauphiness),  168, 

169,  172 
Angivilliers,  Hotel  d',  121 
Anna  Ivanovna,  223,  224 
Anne  of  Austria.     {See  Austria.) 
Antin,  Chaussied',  119 
Antibes,  i8i. 

Antommarchi,  Doctor,  197 
Antwerp,  65 
"Apollo,"  87 
Aragon,  House  of,  82 
Aragona,  Tullia  d',  81-94 
,  Dialogo  deir  injinith  delP  Amore^ 

86,  89-91,  93 
Arditi,  248 
Aretino,  Pietro,  85 
Argental,  d',  218,  223,  224,  225,  226, 

227 
Ariosto,  56,  57 
Arnault,  182 
,  Souvenirs  dhm  SexagSnaire,    182 

note 
Arnold,  Matthew,  322 
Arnoldiana,  117 
Arnould,  Sophie,  109-122 

,^.{p^re),  109,  114-15 

,  Mme.,  109-10,  112,  1 14-15 

Arrighi,  85,  87 

Artois,  Comte  d',  155,   159,  167.     {Sie 

also  Charles  X.) 
Astley's,  329,  333  note,  335,  336-7 
Auber,  258 
Aubigne,  Fran9oise  d'.     {See  Mainte- 

NON,  Madame  de.) 
Australia,  68,  77 
Austria,  32  ;  74-5  ;  156  j  257 

,  Anne  of,  53,  58-62  ;  143 

,  Giovanna,  Archduchess  of,  24-5, 

27-9,  30 

,  House  of,  31  ;  165 

,  Joseph  II.,  Emperor  of,  156,  160, 

162 

,  Don  Juan  of,  65 


346 


INDEX 


Austria,  Maria -Theresa,  Empress  of, 
154.  156-9,  160 

,  ''Tigress  of"  (MARIE- Antoin- 
ette), 161 

Avenel,  159 

Avignon^  199 

Ayen,  Due  d*,  123 


B 


Baden-Baden^  308 
BaJia,  91 

Ballets  :  (Marie  Taglioni,  252-262) 
Riception  d^unejeune  nymphe  h  la  cour 
de  Terpsichore^  Le  Sicilien^  254  ;  Les 
Bayaderes^  Psychic  Guillaume  Tell,,  Le 
Dieu  et  la  Bayadere,  La  Sylphide,  255  j 
La  Gitanay  La  Cachucha^  258  ;  "  Pas 
de  Quatre"  260  ;  L^  Papillon^  261 

Balzac,  Honors  de,  298-311 

,  Physiologie  du  Mariage^  298 

,  Seines  de  la  Vie  Privie^  298,  299 

,  La  Peau  de  Chagrin:  {The  Wild 

Ass's  Skin)y  298,  299 

,  La  Comidie  Humaine^  299 

,  Za  Duchesse  de  Langeais^  300 

,  Contes  Drdlatiquesy  30 1 

,  {Le)  Midecin  de  Campagne^  302 

,  Le  Lys  dans  la  Vallee,  306 

,  La  Fille  aux  Yeux  d^or^  306 

Bar^  192 

Bar,  Mme.  de,  50 

Barclay,  James  (or  Paul),  332,  333 

Barnave,  163 

Barnum,  264,  265 

Barras,  180 

Bassompierre,  39 

,  Mimoires-Jaurnaux^  39 

Bastille,  the,  13  ;  146-7 

Baternay,  Jehanne  de,  i 

Bath,  69 

Bavaria,  72-3 

Bayard,  Chevalier,  2 

Bayley,  Mr.  F.  W.  R.,  256 

Bayonne,  2  ;  61-2 

Beaufort,      Duchesse      de       {Gabrielle 
d'Estrhs),  48  and  note 

Beauvallon,  71-2 

affaire,  72 

Becu,  Anne  (Anne  Rangon),  124 

,  Fabien,  124 

Belanger,  119,  iai-2 

"  Belle-Beauty  "  {Mazeppa  horse),  335 

Bellegarde,     Due     de     (Roger    de 
Saint-Lary),  39-41,  44 

Belletti,  268 

Belgium,  312 

Bellini,  245,  246,  248 

,  La  Sonnambula,  231  ;  271,  273 

,  l^orma,  23 1  ;  245,  249  ;  273  j 


Bellini,  I  Puritani,  246 

Benedict  (Julius) :  his  Morning-Concerts, 

247 
"Benicia    Boy"    {See   also    John    C. 
Heenan),  327,  332 

Benucci,  90 

Benzoni,  Countess,  280,  288 

Beranger,  332 

B^rg,  268 

Berg    and  Cleves,  Grand    Duchess  of, 
193 

Beriot,  Charles  Auguste  de,  237-8-9 

,  Wilfrid, ,  238 

Berlin,  70;  268,  271,  272 

Berlioz,  325 

Bernard  (the  poet),  117 

Berny,  60 

Berny,  Mme.  de,  301,  303,  306 

Berry,   Marie-Caroline,  Duchesse 
DE("  Madame"),  166-178 

,  Due  de,  167,  169 

Berryer,  174,  175,  178 

Bertin,  M.,  116 

,  Mme.  (modiste),  160 

Besenval,  124 

Beuil,  Mile,  de,  44 

Bentivoglio,  Ercole,  85 

Beze,  Theodore  de,  6 

Biagi,  Guido,  84  note,  93  and  note 

,  UtC  Eth-a  Romana^  84  note^   93 

note 

Bibbiena,  Bernardo  Domizio  da,  87 

Biblioteca  Rara,  90 

Bibliotheque  Nationale,  119 

Billard-Dumonceaux,  M.,  124 

Biographie  Universelle,  212 

Biondelli,  23,  28 

Blanc,  Louis,  171 

Blanchard,  Henri,  244  ;  253-4-5 

,  Le  Monde  Dramatiquey  243  ;  253 

Blackwood,  291 

Blangini,  191,  193 

Blaye,  166,  168,  173,  174,  177 

Blessington,  Lady,  296 

Blois,  13  ;  109 

Boccaccio,  91 

,  Novelle,  91 

Boileau,  104 
Bois-le-Vicomte,  60 
Boisrobert,  102 
Boissiere,  Chevalier  de  la,  loi 
BoissY,  Marquise  de,  279,  296.     {See   ', 
also  GuicciOLi,  Teresa  Gamba.) 

,  Marquis  de,  296 

Bologna,  21,  29;   86  j  231  ;  242  ;  280,    ■, 

284,  285,  287 
Bonaparte,  Napoleon  (Napoleon  I.), 
180-184,  187-197 

,  Annunziata  (Caroline),  182  note 

,  Charles,  179 

,  Joseph,  188  note^  189  note 


INDEX 


347 


Bonaparte,  Louis  (ex-King  of  Holland), 

197 

,  Lucien,  181,  190 

,  Madame  ("Madame  Mere"),  179, 

182  notet  190,  196-7 

,  Marie- Anne  (Eliza),  182  note 

Sisters,  the,  1 80-1-2,  195 

Bonaventuri,  Pietro,  19,  21-2,  26-8 

,  "Mother,"  21,  23-4 

,  Pellegrina,  35 

Bondyy  Rue  de,  342 
Bongianni,  Cassandra,  27 
Bonstetten,  Karl  Victor,  202-3 

Memoirs,  202 

Bonvicino  (II  Moretto),  84 

Bordeaux,  2  ;  258 

Bordeaux,  Henri,  Due  de  ("  Henri  V."), 

169,  1 70-1-2,  178 
BoRGHESE,  Pauline,    179-197  (Bona- 
parte, Pauline  [Paulette] ) 
,  Prince  Camillo,  188,  189,  190-1, 

193-4,  197 
Palace  ("Piano  Borghese  "),  189, 

190 

diamonds,  189,  190 

Bosphorusj  the,  274 

Bossuet,    Bishop    of   Condom    (M.    de 

Condom),  151,  152 
Bouillon,  Duchesse  de,  224-5 
Boulmiers,  des,  218 

Bourbons,  the,  46  ;  156;  167,  171,  178 
Bourdaisiere,    Fran9oise    Babou    de    la 

(Mme.  d'Estrees),  38,  39 
Bouret,  Abbe,  222,  225 
Bourgogne^  Rue  de  (Rue  de  Crenelle), 

226 
Bourmont,  Marshal  de,  174 
Brancas,   Mme.   de  (Mme.    de    Laura- 

guais),  115,  116. 
Brandes  (Georg),  283 
Brantome,  13 
Brescia,  84 
Bretagne,  170 
Breze,  Louis  de,  i,  2 

territory,  10 

Brissac,  Due  de,  135 

,  Mme.  de,  148 

British  Museum,  25  ;  90 ;  340  note 

Brittany,  l'j2 

Brock,  196 

Bronzinos,   the,  25.     {See  also  Allori, 

Alessandro.) 
Bruces,  the,  200 
Brussels,  65  ;  237,  238 
Buckingham,  Duke  of,  140,  141 
Bunn,  Alfred,  260,  261 
Buyukdere,  274 
Byron,  Lord,  279-297  ;  313,  319 ;  335 

,  Don  Juan,  285,  287,  294 

,  Manfred,  294 

,  The  Dream,  287  note 


Calais,  5 

Calandra^  87 

Calvin,  92 

Cambrai,  Peace  of,  2 

Campan,  Mme.,  161 

Cancelleria  (Palace  of  the),  Rome,  208 

Canouville,  Colonel  Jules  de,  188,  194 

Canova,  184,  194  j  336 

,  Venus  VincitriXf  184,  194 

Capefigue,  10 

Capello,  Bianca,  18-36 

,  Bartolomeo,  18,  21 

,  Vittorio,  30 

Caraca,  177 
Caradori,  230,  239 
Carbonari,  the,  292,  293 
Carlyle,   124,  134  note,   136;  159  note; 
160  note 

French  Revolution^  1 34  note;  159 

note,  160  note 

"  Casta  Diva "   (song  in   Norma :   see 

Bellini),  245 
Castil-Blaze,  237  ;  246-7 
Castile,  Almirante  of,  65 
Castlereagh,  Lord,  244 
Castries,  Marquise  de,  300,  301,  303 
Catalani,  265 

"  Cavaliere  Servente,^*  the,  207  j  282,  285 
Cavalli,  Marino,  7 

,  Marquis,  291 

Cilimhne  {Le  Misanthrope),  220 

Celio  (Tullia  d'Aragona's  son),  93 

Cellini,  Benvenuto,  10 

Cerito,  67,  260 

Cesar  ("  Monsieur  "),  46 

Chabannes,  seigneur  de  la  Palisse,  2 

Chabans,  Baron  de,  96 

Chailloty  142 

Chalon,  A.E.  (R.A.),  256 

Chambord  {^2iS.z.ZQ.  of),  13 

Chanteloup,  133 

Chantilly,  6 1 

Charles  I.,  King  of  England,  140,  141 

n.,      „  „      ,  105;  140, 

141,  144,  147-9 

Vin.,  King  of  France,  i  note 

X.,  King  of  France  (Comte  d'Ar- 

tois),  170-2,  175 

of  Lorraine,  Prince,  62-3 

Emmanuel,  Duke  of  Savoy,  59, 

64-S 
Charleval,  loo,  104 
Chartrain  {Milneburg)^  330 
Chartres,  43,  49 
Chastelain,  Mme.,  235 
Chateaubriand,  177;  192;  211 
Chateauneuf,  Abbe  de,  96 
Chateauroux,  Mme.  de,  134 
Chatto,  Mr.  Andrew,  340,  342 


348 


INDEX 


Chaulieu,  Abbe,  lo8 

Chaworth,  Mary,  287  note 

Chenonceauxt  ii,  13,  15 

Chesterfield,  Lord,  126 

Chiarini,  287 

Choiseul,  Due  de,  75  ;    124,  127,    129, 

130-1-2-3  ;  155,  156,  159 
Choisy-le-Roiy  155 
Chorley  (critic.   The  Athenaum)^  236  ; 

243>  247 
,  AthencBuniy  The,  236  ;  243  ;  246  ; 

252 
Christina  of  Sweden,  Queen,  102,  106 
^^  Cicisbeoy^^  the,  204;  282,  285,  287-8, 

291 
Cigogna,  Emanuele,  18,  19,  20,  35 
Cincinnati,  331,  335 

,  The  Israelite  (newspaper  at),  331 

Civita  Vecchia^  64 

Clairon,  Mile.,  113,  120,  122 

Claremont,  Claire,  289 

Clarke,  W,  Savile,  339 

Clavel,  218-9,  220 

Claviere,  R.  de  Maulde  la,  2  note  ;  83, 

85,88 
Clementine,  Archduchess,  167 
Clichy,  121 
"  Cocotte "  (Mathilde  Heine's  parrots), 

3191  320,  326 
Code  Napoleon,  75 
Cceuvres  (Chdteau  de),  38,  39,  40 
Cogni,  Margarita,  287 
Coleridge,  284 
CoUe,  113  ;  126 
Colmar,  208 
Cologne,  65 
CoLONNA,  Marie  Mancini.  (iV^  Marie 

Mancini.) 
,     Prince     (Grand     Constable    of 

Naples),  63-5 

,  Vittoria,  85,  87-8 

family-name,  200 

Comidie-Fran^aise,  216,    217,   220,  222. 

(See  also  Thidtre-Fran^ais.) 
Como,  Lake  of,  261 
Compilgne,  155 

Conciergerie  (Prison  of  the),  165 
Conde,  99 
Constant  (Napoleon's  valet),  194  note 

,  Memoirs  i  194  note 

Contarini,  13 

,  Count,  253 

,  Countess,  253 

Conti,  Princessede  (Princess  of  Modena), 

no,  III,  112 
,  Mme.  de.    {See  Conti,  Princesse 

de.) 
Corneille,  Pierre,  no,  216 

,  Polyeucte,  216 

,  Thomas,  216 

,  Le  Deuily  216 


"Cornelia"  (role  of),  221 

Corsica,  179,  180 

Cosnac,  Daniel  de  (Bishop  of  Valence), 

150 
Cosway,  135 

Courland,  Duchy  of,  223-4 
Cousin,  Jean,  10 
Coutades,  Mme.  de,  186 
Couvreur  (father  of  Adrienne   Lecouv- 

reur),  216 
Coypel,  221 
Craigie,  Colonel,  69 
,  Mrs.  (Lola  Oliver  ;  Lady  Gilbert), 

69 
Crawford,  Mrs.,  296-7 

,  The  JHeader  {a.rtic\e  in),  296 

Crebillon,  126  ;  220 

,  Electra,  220 

Crescimbeni,  82,  90,  93 

,  Storia  della  volgar  Poesia,  82 

Croelius,  267,  268 
Croys,  the,  200 
Curran,  290 


D— ,  Baron  de,  218 

Dachaud,  196 

D'Alembert,  no 

Dalkeith,  Lady,  140 

Damas,  Baron  de,  170 

Damery,  2.\(i 

Damiens,  134 

Darby-Smith,  Mary  R.,  279 

,  Recollections  of  Two  Distinguished 

Persons,  279 
Daughter  of  the  Regiment  {La  Fille  du 

Regiment),  266,  273 

,  "  Maria  "  (role  in),  273 

Daujon,  163 

(his)  Narrative,  163 

Dauphin,  the  (Louis  XVI.),  155,  158, 

159 

(Louis  XVII),  161,  163,  164  ;  168 

{See  also  ANGouLiME,  Due  d') 

David,  190  note,  191 

,  Coronation-picture,  190  note 

Dayton,  333,  and  notes 

Deffand,  Mme.  du,  105,  107 

Degas,  256 

Dejazet,  265 

Delorme,  Philibert,  10 

Del  Rosso,  10 

De  Musset  (Alfred),  229,  240  ;  259 

Der  Freischiitz  (opera),  265,  266,  267 

,  "Agatha"  (role  in),  265,  267,  268 

,  **  Softly  Sighs  "  {scena  in),  268,  271 

Desbarreaux,  102 

Deutz  (<'M.  de  Gonzague"),  175,  176 


INDEX 


349 


Dialogo  delt  Infinith  deW  Amore^  86,  89, 

^90.91,93 

Diamond  Necklace,  the,  154,  160,  161 

Dtanei  (Anet),  10,  11,  15 

Dickens,  Charles,  327,  342 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography ^  69 

Dictiomiaire  des  Precieuses^  97 

Diderot,  no,  221 

Domrimy,  124 

Donati,  Maria,  21,  22 

Don  Giovanniy  243,  246 

,  "  Donna  Anna  "  (role  in),  243 

"  //  mio  tesoro  "  (song  in),  246 

Dover,  149 

Road,  140 

Dresden,  70  ;  308,  310 

Drevet,  221 

Drouais,  133 

Drouot,  General,  196 

Du    Barry,   Jeanne    (Jeanne    Becu ; 

'*  Little  Lange  "  ;  Jeanne  Beauvarnier  ; 

Jeanne  Vaubarnier),  123-136  j  155-7  ; 

167 

,  Fanchon,  128 

,  Guillaume,  129 

,  Jean  ("The  Roue"),  125-7,  129, 

130-1 
Dtihlifi,  69 

Du  Clos,  Mile,  216,  222 
Duff,  Mary,  313 
Du  Que,  Mme,  216,  217 
Dujarrier,  71-2,  74 
Dumas,  Alexandre,  72,  74,  77 

(the  younger),  327 

Dumesnil,  122 
DurlenSf  41 


E 


Ecluse,  Rue  de  /*,  326 

Edinburgh,  200 

Elba,  167  ;  196 

Elizabeth,  Princess  (of  France),  163 

Elizabeth  Petrovna,  the  Grand-Duchess, 
224 

Ellis,  Mr.  Ellis  H.,  338 

Elphinstone,  Lord,  70 

Elssler,  Fanny,  67,  258 

^^ Enfant  du  Miracle,  Z',"  ^'Enfant  de 

\  PEurope,   Z',"    166,    169,    170.     {.See 

\         also  Bordeaux,  Due  de.) 

I      England,  61,  66  ;  68,  loi ;  126,  135  ; 

139,   140,   143,   149;  171;    180  note-, 

I99»  205,  209;  239;  268-273;  289, 

290,  294 ;  322  ;  336,  338 

Entragues,  Henriette  d',  38  note,  51 

Epernon,  Due  d',  39 

Era,  The,  68 

Almanack^  332  note 

Esparbes,  Mme.  d',  127 


Espinasse,  Julie  de  V,  126 
Este,  Isabella  d',  87 
Estoille,  r,  47 

,  Journal  de  P,  47  note 

ESTREES,  GaBRIELLE   D',  37-5 1 

,  Antoine  d'  38,  41,  43,  47 

Etampes,  Duchesse  d',  4,  5,  7,  9 
Euthyme  et  Liris,  120 
Exeter,  140 


Fabre,  Francois  Xavier,  198,  211- 
12 

,  Musee  (Montpellier),  212 

Falconieri  Palace,  Rome,  197 

Favart,  Justine,  227 

Favier,  126 

Favre,  Louis,  195 

,  Les  Confidences  d'un  vieux  Palais^ 

195 
Fel,  Mile.,  113 
Ferdinand  I.,  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies, 

168 
Ferney,  1 16 
Piron,  Rue,  216 
Ferrara,  82,  86-7,  90,  94 
Fersen,  Count  Axel  de,  162 
Fetis,  234 

Feuillet,  M.  Nicolas,  152 
Filles'Sainte- Marie  (Convent  of),  142 
Fismes,  216 

Fitzjames  ("Cousin"),  199 
Flaubert,  Gustave,  72,  74 

,  Madame  B ovary,  72 

Florence,  8  ;  19,  21,  22,  24,  26,  30,  31, 

32,  35-6  J  90,  91  ;  197  ;  204,  210  ;  292 
Foix,  Gaston  de,  2 
Fontaine,  221 
Fontainebleau,  45,  49  ;   64 ;   155  >  '92> 

193 
Fontenelle,  99,  no 
Forbin,  Louis-Philippe- Auguste  de,  191, 

192 
Fortunie,  Rue  (Rue  Balzac),  309  and  note 
Foscolo,  211 
Fosses  -  Saitit  -  Germain-d'Auxerrois,  Rue 

des,  114 

, des  Prhy ,  216 

Fouche,  195 
Fourreau,  99 
France,  i,  2,  4,  5, 7,  8,  11,  15  ;  41.  45. 

46,  48,  49  ;  53,  54,  60,  62,  63,  65  ;  75  ; 

102,  105;  III;  128,  131;  139,   140, 

149;    155.    156,  158,  159.  161  ;  166, 

170,    171,    172,    173,  174,   I75»   177; 

188  ;    198,  199,  202  ;  296,  297 
France,  M.  Anatole,  140  note,  144,  145, 

148  and  note 


350 


INDEX 


Francis  I.,  King  of  France,  2,  4,  5,  6,  7, 

8,  9,  and  notCy  7 

,  King  of  the  Two  Sicilies,  167 

Francis  the  Dauphin,  2,  6 

Frankfort^  65 

Frascatiy  190 

Frederick- Augustus,  Elector  of  Saxony, 

223 
Freron,  Stanislas,  180,  181,  182,  187 

'''Frisco,'' ZZZ 
Fulha/n,  250 


Galiani,  Abbe,  113 

Galveston,  331 

Galluzzi,  19,  25 

Gamba,  Count,  279,  290,  292-3 

,  Pietro,  293,  295 

Gautier,  Theophile,  247  ;  261  ;  304 ; 
312;  328 

Garanci^re,  Rue,  216 

Garcia,  Maria-Felicita  ("Mali- 
bran"),  228-240;  244,  247;  255, 
258,  260-1,  265,  268,  270 

,  Manuel  {pere),  228-9-30 

, (//j),  268-9-70 

Gardel,  255 

,  Psyche  (ballet),  255 

Gar  rick,  120 

Gedoyn,  Abbe,  108 

Genee,  Adeline,  256 

Geneva,  192 

GenoOf  294-5 

(Republic  of),  179 

Geoghegan,  Mr.,  207-8 

Georgel,  Abbe,  134  note 

Gergy,  Languet  de,  225,  226 

Germany,  322 

Gerrard  Street,  31,  (London),  230 

**  Gewgaws,  Queen  of,"  (Pauline 
Borghese),  185,  190,  195,  197 

*'  Gideon,  Johnnie,"  300,  332  note 

Gilbert,  Marie-Dolores-Eliza-Rosanna 
(Lola  Montez),  68 

— •,  Sir  Edward,  68-9 

Giles,  Miss,  248-9 

Giovanna,  Archduchess  of  Austria.  {See 
Austri^.) 

Girardin,  Emile,  71 

Gironde{i\ie  River),  177 

Giuglini,  249 

Giulia  di  Ferrara,  82,  83,  94 

Globe,  Le,  71 

Gluck,  116,  119,  120 

,  Ipkigenie en  Aulide,  Ii6,  1 20 

,  Alceste,  120 

Glycaera,  Queen  of  Tarsus,  92 

Goethe,  154,  160  ;  283,  294 

,  Faust,  283 


Goncourt,  Edmund  and  Jules  de,   no, 

114,  II6-7J  123,  125  note-,  154,  160 

note,  161 
,  Histoire  de  Marie- Antoinette,  160 

note 
Gori,  Francesco,  208 
Gottingen,  317 
Gonzagas,  the,  200 
Goujon,  Jean,  10,  15 
Grahn,  260 
Grammont,  Marechale  de,  102 

,  Beatrice,  Duchesse  de,  127,  130-I 

"Grande   Mademoiselle,  La "60.     {See 

also  MoNTPENSiER,  Mlle.  de.) 
Grand-Seneschal  (of  Normandy).      {See 

Breze.) 
"  Grande  S^neschale,    La,"   i,   2,   5,    6 

(Diane  de  Poitiers) 
Grassini,  241 
Greece,  294-5 
Grenelle,  Rue  de,  226 
Greuze,  128;  186 

Grimani,  Patriarch  of  Aquilea,  18,  22 
Grisi,  Giulia,  231 ;  241-251 ;  253,  258, 

265,  273 

,  Carlotta,  260 

,  Giuditta  (Judith),  241,  243,  248 

Guadagni,  Palazzo  (Florence),  205 
Guastalla,  191 

,  Princess  of  (Pauline  Borghese),  191 

Guibert,  1 26 

Guibourg,  176 

Guicciardi,  Silvestro  dei,  92 

Guiccioli,  Teresa  Gamba  (Countess), 

279-295.    (6'^^a/r(?BoissY,  Marquise 

DE.) 

Count,  279,  281-2-3-4,  287,  289- 

292,  296 

Palace,  292,  293 

Guiche,  Armand,  Comte  de,  144-148 

Guiffry,  3,  16,  17 

Guimard,  Mile.,  118 

Guinis,  the,  175 

Gui-Patin,  53 

Guise,  Franfois,  Due  de,  5,  15 

Guises,  the,  5,  9,  12 

Gustavus  III.,  King  of  Sweden,  208; 

253 


H 


Hamburg,  313.  SU,  31 5 
Hanseatic  Towns,  The,  317 
Hanska,     Evelina    (Countess     Eve, 
"  VEtrangire  "),  298-3 1 1 

,  Anna,  300,  307,  308,  309,  310 

Hanski,  Wenceslas  (Count),  300,  303, 

307 
Haroun-al-Raschid,  72-3 
Hauser,  Herr,  272 


INDEX 


351 


Hauteroche,  216 

Havana^  330 

Heald,  George  Trafford,  77 

Heenan,    John    C,     332.       {See    also 

"Benicia  Boy.") 
Heine,  Henri,  312-327 

Intermezzo^  314 

Doppelgdnger  {Der)^  314 

''Lonely  Tear  {The);'  315 

Ich  grolle  nicht,  315 

*•  New  Spring^'  316 

''  Blue  Hussars  {The),''  316,  322 

Du  bist  wie  eine  Blume  ("  Thou  art 

as  is  a  Flower"),  316,  322 

O  liege  nicht  I,  318 

Vitzliputzli,  325 

,  Salomon,  313,  324 

,  Lotte,  319,  325 

Hemel,  Mile.,  117 

Henin,  Prince  d*,  117,  120 

Henri  111.,  39 

Henrietta-Maria,  Queen,  140,  141 

Henry  H.,  King  of  France  (Henry,  Duke 

of  Orleans),  2-4,  6-17 
IV. (Henry  of  Navarre),  37- 

51  ;  142,  145 

,  Duke  of  Orleans,  2 

^'Hercules;'  the,  295 

Hohenzollerns,  the,  200 

Holland,    Canon  Scott,  264,  265,  266, 

272,  273,  274 
Holy  rood,  171,  172 
Hoppner,  282,  290,  292,  295 
Horn,  Elizabeth-Philippine,  Countess  of, 

199,  200 
Horndearn- Ardour  .{Trianon),  i6l 
Hortense,  Queen  of  Holland,  193 
Hotel  du  /^a«^^«r^  (Neufchatel),  303-4 
Hdtel  du  Faucon  (Neufchatel),  303 
Hotten,  John  Camden,  340-I 
Houssaye,  Arsene,  260 
Huguenots,  the,  4,  9 
Humieres,  Mme.  d',  39 
Hunolstein,  Mme.  d',  116 
Hunt,  Leigh,  289,  294,  296 
Husson,  Jeanne,  124 
Hyde  Park  (London),  261 


I 

■^  Ile-de-France,  41 
//  Meschino,  0  il  Guerino,  90,  91 
'  Imitation  of  Christ,  The,  302 
;  India,  68-9,  70 
j  Indiana  (Courts),  332 
i>Infelicia  (Adah    Isaacs    Menken),    329, 
[^  334,  337.  338,340-1-2 
i  Ireland,  69,  70 ;  249 
■   Ischl,  306 
I  Issoire,  38  and  note 


Italian  Opera-house,  The  (Paris),  235 ; 

241-2 
Italy,  22;  85;  171,  173;  182;  231, 

238  ;  261,  292  ;  308 

Ixelles,  238 

J 

"  James,  Betty  "  (Lola  Montez),  67-8, 

74,  77 

,  Captain,  68,  69,  70 

,  Henry,  13  note 

James  II.,  King  of  England,  171 

fardin  des  Plantes,  181 

Jarzay,  Chevalier  de,   99,    lOi.     (Lord 

Jersey  "of  England"),  loi  note 
Jansenists,  the,  99,  102  ;  130,  132 
Jeaflfreson,  280-1,  287,  294 
Jesuits,  the,  73-4-5,  77  J  130,  132 
Joan  of  Arc,  124,  136 
"  Jocaste  "  (role  of)  in  (Edipe,  225 
Joseph  IL,   Emperor  of  Austria.      {See 

Austria.) 
Josepha  ("  Sefchen  die  Rote  "),  313 
Josephine,  The  Empress,  181-4,  and  184 

note,  188-191,  192,  195 
journal  des  Dibats,  242 
Juan  of  Austria,  Don.     {See  Austria.) 
Junot,  181,  183,  184  and  note 
,  Madame  (Laure  Permon),  184  note. 

{See  Abrantes,  Duchesse  d'.) 


K 


Karsten,  253 

Kauffmann,  Angelica,  203 

Kersabiec,  Eulalie  de,  174,  I7S»  17^ 

,  Sioc'han  de,  175 

Kiev,  310 

King's  Theatre,  the  (London),  242  ;  258 
Klinglin,  M.  de,  219-20 
Konigsmark,  Aurora  de,  223 


Labille's,  125 

Lablache,  238-9  ;  241,  258 

Lacroix,  11 6- 17 

La  Fayette,  Mme.  de,  139,  140  note,  148, 

150,  151 
,    Histoire    de    Madame   Henriette 

d' Angleterre,  140  note 
La  Fere,  55 
Lafont,  188 
Lafosse,  103 
"  La  France,"  128 
Lagny,  102 
Lalande,  11 1 


352 


INDEX 


Lamar  tine,  21 1 

Lamb,  Caroline  (Lady),  288 

,  Ghnarvon^  288 

Lamballe,  Princesse  de,  159 

La  Mira  (Byron's  villa  at  Venice) ,  287, 

290 
Lanari,  248 
Landsfeld,  Countess  of  (Lola  Montez), 

75-7 
Lanfranchi^  Casa  (at  Pisa),  294 
La  prova  (Pun*  Opera  seria  (comic  piece), 

258 
La  Rena,  Comtesse,  126 
La  Rochefoucauld,  57  ;  104 
La  Rochelle,  60 

La  Scala  (Theatre  of),  Milan,  231,  242 
La  Tour,  113 
La  Traviattty  249 

,  "  Violetta  "  (r&le  in),  249 

La  Tremouille,  2 

Larousse,  23,  25,  32,  34 

Larroumet,  227 

Lassels,  82 

La  Varenne,  49,  50 

Lauraguais,    Due     de     ("Dorval") 

(Louis,  Comte  de  Brancas),  114- 

117,  119,  121-2 

,  (^plre\  IIS 

Lautrec,  2 

Lauzun,  Due  de,  126 

Label,  127,  129 

Lebrun,  103 

Leclerc,  General,  183-4,  187-8-9 

,  Dermide,  184,  188, 190 

family,  the,  190 

,  M,,  Governor  of  Bar,  192 

Lecouvreur,  Adrienne,  215-227 

Le  Deuily  216,  217 

Lee,  Vernon,  201 

Leghorn,  294-5 

Legouve,  Ernest,  229,  234,  236,  240 

Legrand,  217 

,  Mile.,  126 

Leigh,  Mrs.  (Augusta),  296 
Leipzig^  272 

,  Gewandhaus,  272 

Lenclos,  Ninon  de,  95-108  ;  126 

,  M.  de,  95-7. 

,    Mme.    de,    (Marie-Barbe    de  la 

Marche),  96 
Lennox,  Captain,  A.D.C,  70 
Le  Nozze  di  Figaro,  246  ;  273 

,  "  Almaviva,"  (r61e  in),  246 

Leo  X.,  87 

,  Life  of,  82 

Leopold,  the  Emperor,  167 

Leroy,  179,  192 

Le  Roy,  Philippe,  218 

Lescure,  41,  43  note 

Les  Ftuillants  (Prison  of),  164' 

Les  Pirates  de  la  Savane^  342 


Levasseur,  Rosalie,  120 
Levy,  Arthur,  185,  195 
Leuthen,  Battle  of,  199 
Liancourt,  Sieur  de  (Nicolas  d'Amerval), 

43 
,    Madame   de   (Gabrielle   d'Es- 

trees),  43-5 
Liberty,  Texas,  331 
Librairie  Gosselifi,  299 
Lido,  the,  282 

•*Ligdonise"  (Ninon  de  Lenclos),  97 
Ligne,  Prince  de,  126 

,  family-name,  200 

Limerick,  69 

Limousin  (Brothers),  10 

LiND,  Jenny,  247  j  260  ;  263-275 

.,  Fru,  267 

Lindblad,  Herr,  271 
Lisbon,  77  ;  154  note 
Lisieux,  Hotel  de,  11 4- 15 
Litta,  23,  34,  36 

,  Celebre  Famiglie,  23 

•'Little  Veronica,"  313 
Littre,  153 

,  Midicine  et  MMecins,  153 

Liverpool,  272 

Livry,  Emma,  261,  262 

Logan,  Celia,  331 

Loiseleur,  Jules,  50 

,     Questions    historiques    du  XVIIe 

Sikle,  50  note 
London,  70  ;  106  ;  140,  149  ;  230,  239  ; 

243,   244,   246,  247;  256,  258,  260, 

261;  266,  269,  272,  273,  274;  329, 

335 
Longueville,  Due  de  (Henri  d'Orleans), 

39,41 
Lorraine,  Prince  Charles  of,  62-3. 

,  Charles,  Cardinal  de,  5 

,  Chevalier  de,  148-9,  152 

,  House  of,  5 

Louis  XIH.,  53 

XIV.,    56-66;     103,     105;     114 

note;  124;  140,  142-3-4;  146,  148-9, 

151-2-3  ;  171 

—  XV.,  65 ;  123,  137-8-9,  131-4 ; 

158-9  ;  199        ^ 

XVI.,  156,  162-4;  168 

XVIII.,  167,  169 

Philippe,  171,  177 

,  ex-King  of  Holland,  197 

Louise     (Josephine's    maid),    183,    184 

note 
Louisiana,  342 
Louvel,  169 

Louvre,  the,  55  ;  161  ;  185  ;  310 
Luc,  196 

Lucchesi-Palli,  Count,  172,  173,  178 
Luciennes,  133,  135,  136 
Lucrezia  Borgia,  246,  250  ;  258 
LuDwiG  I.,  King  of  Bavaria,  72-77  i 


INDEX 


353 


Lumley,  Sir  Abraham,  69 

,  manager  of  Her  Majesty's  Theatre, 

67-8 
Lundberg,  Mile.,  266 
Luneville^  191  ;  21 7 
Luzarchesy  121 
Lyonne,  57 
LyonSf  58-9,  64 


M 


Macdonald,  183 

Macerata,  201 

Madelonneitesy  Les^  102 

Madrid,  5  ;  64-5  ;  68 

— —  Academy,  317 

Magnus,  269 

Maintenon,  Madame  de,  loi,  106  ;  114 

note 
Malezieux,  114 
Malibran.     {See     Garcia,      Maria- 

Fei.icita.) 

,  Eugene,  232-3,  235,  236,  238-9 

Manchester  Festival,  239 

Mancini,      Marie      (Marie      Mancini 

Colonna),  52-66 
,  La  verite  dans  soft  jour,  S4»  S^~7» 

61 
,  Hortense,  54-6,    58,  60,    62,  64. 

(DUCHESSE  DE  MaZARIN.) 

,    Laure,    54,    56.     (Madame   de 

Mercoeur.) 
,  Madame,  52,  54-7.    (Hieronyme 

Mazarini.) 

,  Marianne,  54,  56,  60 

,  Michaele  Lorenzo,  52 

,  Olympe,  54,  56  ;  143-4,  146,  148. 

{See  also  SoissoNS,  Comtesse  de.) 
Manelli,  Pietro,  85 
Manicamp,  121 
Mantes,  39,  41 
Mantua,  200 
Marais,  Rue  des  (Rue  de  Visconti),  222 

note 
Marat,  Jean  Paul,  180 
Marbeuf,  H6tel,  188 
Marche,      Marie-Barbe      de      la,      96. 

{See  Lenclos,  Madame  de.) 
Maria-Theresa,  Empress  of  Austria.    {See 

Austria.) 
Marie-Antoinette,     120,    134,    135, 

136;    154-165.       (The    Dauphiness), 

167-168 
Marie-Leczinska,  Queen,  in,  112  j  127 
Marie-Louise  (The  Empress),  195,  197 

(Queen  of  Spain),  145  note 

Marie-Therese  {as  Infanta  of  Spain), 

59,  62-3 

{as  Queen  of  France),  144,  150,  153 

2   A 


Mario,  Giuseppe,  Marquis  de  Can- 
DiA,  241,  245,  246,  248-251  ;  258 

Marivaux,  220 

,  La  Surprise  de  FAmour^  220 

Marly,  155 

Marmont,  General,  182 

Marot,  Clement,  5,  9,  16  note 

Marseilles,  173,  174;  180,  l8l  ;  261; 
308 

Mary,  Princess  of  Orange,  141 

Massa,  172 

Masson,  185,  190 

**  Mattress-Grave,  The,"  319,  322 

Maupeou,  132 

Maurepas,  226 

Mazarin,  Cardinal,  53-64 

,  Due  de.    {See  Porte,  Armand  de 

LA.) 

,     Duchesse    de.    (See    Mancini, 

Hortense.) 
Mazarini,  Hieronyme.     {See  Mancini, 

Madame.) 
Mazeppa,  329,  332,  334-5,  336-7 
Mazzuchelli,  90,  91 
M'^Cord,   Adelaide  {See  also  Menken, 

Adah  Isaacs),  329,  330 

(her  father),  330 

,  Mrs.,  330 

children     ("Theodore    Sisters"), 

330 
Meath,  69 
Medici,  Francesco  de',  22-36 

,  Antonio  de',  28-9,  33,  35 

,  Catherine  de',  6-9,  12-15  j  109 

,  Cosmo  de',  22-4,  26,  29  ;  89 

,  Ferdinand  de',  29,  31,  33-6  ;  50 

,  Filippo  de',  30,  33 

,  Ippolyto  de',  85 

,  Pietro  de',  34 

Medina-Coelis,  the,  200 
Medwin,  Tom,  294 
Melbourne,  77 
Melcy,  Gerard  de,  244 
Mendelssohn,  268,  271,  272 

,  Elijah,  271 

Mengs  (Bohemian  painter),  203 
Menken,   Adah    (Dolores)    Isaacs, 
328-343.     {See   also    M*=Cord,   Ade- 

LAIDE.) 

,  Isaac,  331,  332 

Mercoeur,  Due  de,  54 

,  Mme.  de.   {See  Mancini,  Laure.) 

Mercy- Argenteau,  120  j  154,  156,  158-9, 

160 
Merlin,    Mercedes,   Comtesse  de,    229, 

234 
''Mesdames"  ('*  Rag,  Snip,  and  Pig"), 

155 
Mesmer,  119 
Mesnard,  176 
Metz,  134,  217 


354 


INDEX 


Mexico,  233 

Meyerbeer,  248;  271 

Michelet,  3,  11,  16  ;  41,  42  ;  180  j  221 

Mignard,  103-4 

MilaUy  182,  183,  184;  231  ;  241-2 

Milnebtirg\Chartrain),  330 

Mingault  (The  gendarme),  165 

Minou,  217 

Miossens,  99 

MiRAT,     Mathilde    (Mme.     Heine), 

312-327 
Mirepoix,  Marechale  de,  132 
"  Miriam,"  316 
Missolonghi^  295 
Mniszech,  Count  Georges,  308 
Modena,  Duchy  of,  172 

,  King  of,  1 72 

,   Princess  of.     (See  Conti,  Prin- 

CESSE  DE.) 
Moliere,  104 

,  Le  Malade  Imagifiaire^  104 

,  Le  Misanthrope^  220 

"Molly"    (Heine's  cousin),   313,   314, 

315 

Monceaux,     Marquise    de.       {See    also 

Gabrielle  d'Estr£es),  46,  47 
*'  Mondragone  Episode,"  23-4 
•'  Monime"  (role  of),  220 
Monnier  MSS.,  183,  195 
Moniteur,  Le,  177 
Mons,  199,  200 
Montague,  Lady,  221 
Montaigne,  25 ;  96 
Montbreton,  185 
Montebello,  Castle  of,  182 
Montenero  (at  Leghorn),  294 
Montespan,  Mme.  de,  64  ;  153 
Montessu,  Mile.,  255 
MoNTEZ,  Lola,  67-78 
Montgomery,  14 
Montmartre,  327 

Montmorency,  Anne  de,  2,  5,  6,  12 
Montmorencys,  the,  5 
Mont-Farnasse,  342 
Montpe liter,  212 
Montpensier,   Mile,   de,   58-9,  60 ;   150 

note.    (**  La  Grande  Mademoiselle.") 
**  Montriveau,  Armand  de  "  {La  Duchesse 

de  Langeais),  301,  304 
Montrond,  185,  196 
Monval,  M.  Georges,  220,  221 
Moore  (Thomas),  287,  288,  290,  293 
Moreau,  99 
Morny,  Due  de,  260 
Moscow,  167 

Motteville,  Mme.  de,  54 ;  139,  145 
Mount-Edgcumbe,  Lord,  230 
Munich,  73-77  j  254-5 
Murray    (John),    284,    285,    287,    289, 

291,  294 
Muzio,  Girolamo,  84,  85,  86,  93 


N 


Naldi,  Mme.,  235 

Nancy,  217 

Nantes,  166,  168,  173,  174,  175 

Naples,  82  ;  168,  172  ;  231 

Napoleon  I.,    Emperor  of  the  French. 

{See  Bonaparte,  Napoleon.) 
Nardi,  85,  92 
National  Assembly,  1 63-4 
Navailles,  Due  de,  99 
Navarre,  OfT. 

,  White  Plume  of,  45 

Nettement,  170,  171 

Neufchdtel,  303 

Newell,     Robert    H.     ("Orpheus     C. 

Kerr  "),  332 
New  Orleans,  330,  331 
New  York,  78  ;  230,  231-2-3,  235  ;  258  ; 

335, 

Churchman  (the),  331 

Nice,  193,  and  note 
Nicholas,  Emperor,  257 
"Nigdalie  "  (Ninon  de  Lenclos),  97 
"Ninetta"   (role  in  La  Gazza  Ladra  : 

see  Rossini),  242,  243,  247 
Nissen,  Henrietta,  270.  (Salomon,  Mme. 

Siegfried.) 
Nivernais,  Due  de,  126 
Noailles,  Comtesse  de,  155-6 
Noble,  21,  27 
Noblet,  Mile.,  255 
Normanby,  Lord,  69,  72 
No7-wich,  274 
Notre- D ame  de  Cliry,  61 


Oatlands,  140 
Ochino,  92 
Odessa,  299 
(Eil-de-Bcetif,  159,  162 
"  Old  Q  "  ("  Milord  March  "),  126 
Oliver,  Lola,  68-9 

Opera,  Theatre  of  the  (Academic  Royale 
de  Musique  ;  "  The  French  house  "  ; 
"The  Grand  Opera"),  109,  11 2-14, 
118-19-2OJ  234-5,  245;  254-5; 
271 
Operas  : — 

Sophie  Arnould  : — 
Iphigtnie  en  Aulide,   ii6;   Castor  et 
Pollux,    120 ;    Euthyme   et    Liris, 
120 

Maria-Felicita  Garcia  (Mali- 
bran)  : — 
//  Barbiere,  230 ;  La  Sonnambula, 
231  ;  Otello,  234,  238  ;  Norma, 
231  ;  Semiramide,  234,  238  ;  Fidelia, 
236 ;  A?idronica,  239 


INDEX 


355 


Operas  : — 

GlULIA  Grisi  : — 
Norma,     242,      245-6,      249,     273; 
Semiramide,  242  ;  La  Gazza  Ladra, 
242-3  ;    Don   Giovanni,  243,    246 ; 
//  Barbiere,  243  ;  Robert  le  Diable, 

245  ;     /   Furitani,    246  j    Lucrezia 
Borgia,    246 ;     Nozze    di    Figaro^ 

246  ;  La  Traviata,  249 
Marie  Taglioni  : — 

Guillaume      Tell,      255 ;       Lucrezia 
Borgia,  258  ;  La  prova  d^un^  Opera 
seria,  258 
Jenny  Lind  :— 
Der  Freischiitz,   265-6-7 ;    Daughter 
of  the  Regiment  (Fille  du  Regiment), 
266,  273  ;  La  Sonnambula^,  271-273 ; 
Robert   le   Diable,   273 ;    Ia   Nozze 
di  Figaro,  273 
Orchestra,  The,  336,  337 

's  "young  man,"  336 

,feuilleton,  ^^  Adah^s  Life,"  337 

Orlandini,  Mme.,  207 
Orleans,    Henriette    d',    139-153. 
("  Madame  "  ;  Henrietta  Stuart.) 

,  Philippe,  Due  d'  (Monsieur),  140, 

142,  148-151 

,    Henry,   Duke   of  (Henry  II.   of 

France),  2 

,  Henri  d',  Due  de  Longueville,39 

party  at  Court,  155 

"Orpheus    C.    Kerr"    (Office-Seeker), 
332.  {See  also  Newell,  Robert  H.) 
Orsinis,  the,  2(X) 
Ossian,  184 

Ossun,  Comtesse  cP,  i6o  note 
Otello,  234,  238 

,  '*  Willow-Song  "  in,  234,  238 

"  Desdemona  "  (role  in),  235,  237  ; 

243 

,  "  Othello  "  (role  in),  228 

Oxenford,  John,  328 


Padua,  282 

Palais-Royal^  147;  171. 

Paleologue,  218,  221  ;  318,  324 

Palissy,  Bernard,  10 

Panthemont  (Convent  at),  IIO-II 

Paoli,  179,  180  note 

Paradise  Lost,  339 

Parc-aux-Cerfs,  127,  128 

Paris,  5,  13,  15;  45,  46,  49;  54,  60, 
64  J  69,  70,  71,  72,  74,  77  ;  loo,  106  ; 
109,  III,  114,  117,  119,  120,  121  ;  124, 
125,  128,  131  ;  155,  158,  159,  160,  162, 
163,  164 ;  170,  171,  173  ;  181, 184,  185, 
190,  191,  192,  193,  194;  199,  208;  216, 
217,  220,  222,  226;  233,  235,236; 
241,  24s ;  254,   255,   258,    261,  262  ; 


265,  266,  268,  270,  271  J  298,  299,  302, 

306,  307,  308,  309,  310  ;  312,  322  ;  342 
Parma,  93 
Pascal,  281 

Pasta,  230,  237  J  243-4 
Patti,  Adelina,  250  j  337 
Paul  (negro-servant  of  Pauline  Borghese), 

196 
Permon,  Madame,  184,  185 
,     Laure     {See     also     Abrantes, 

Duchesse  d'),  184  7iote 
Persiani,  265 

,  Due  de,  296 

Peterborough,  Lord,  222 

Peter  the  Great,  224 

Petion,  163 

"  Petit-Paul  "  (Eulalie  de  Kersabiec),  174 

"  Petit- Pierre "    (Duchesse    de    Berry), 

174 
Petit  Trtanon,  134  ;  161,  162  ;  190,  191 
Pharamond,  123,  129 
Phldre,  224 
Phryne,  Statue  of,  317 
Piccolomini,  249 
Pilon,  Germain,  9 
Pillet,  Leon,  271 
Pimentel  (Spanish  Envoy),  60 
Pindemonte,  Ippolito,  203 
Pisa,  25  ;  66 ;  210 ;  242  ;  293,  294 
Pitt,  135 
Pitti  Palace^  8 
Pittsburg,  335 
Plassac,  174 
Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  338 
Poggio  a  Cajano,  33,  200 
Poitiers,  Diane  de,  1-17 

,  Jehan  — ,  i 

Polignac,  Comtesse  de,  159 

Polyeucte,  216 

Pompadour,  Mme.  de.    III,    112,   118  j 

126,  132,  133,  134 
Porbus,  8 
Porta  Pia,  197 
Porte,  Armand  de  la,  55,  64.    (Marquis 

de  la  Meilleraye  ;  Mazarin,  Due  de.) 
Portugal,  187 

,  Eleonore  of,  2 

Praslin,  131 
Pricieuses,  the,  102 

,  Dictionnairedes,  97 

Presse,  La,  71 

Primaticcio,  3,  10 

Provence,  64 

Provence,  Comte  de,  155,  158 

Promenade  du  Faubourg  {^t\iidizX€i),  303 

Puke,  Count,  281 


"Q,"68 

" ,  You  have  heard  of  Them,  68 

Quotidienne  {La),  301-2 


356 


INDEX 


Rabbe,  Felix,  279,  281 
Rachel,  265 
Rambouillet^  170,  171 
Rameau,  120 

,  Castor  et  Pollux ^  120 

Ramolino,    Letizia.     {See   BONAPARTE, 

Madame.) 
Ranelagh,  Lord,  67-8,  72,  74 
Ravenna,  279,  281-2,  284,  287,  291-2-3, 

297 
Razzi,  91-2 

Read,  Thomas  Buchanan,  342 
Reade, Charles,  327 
Regnier,  221 
Reims,  64 

Rdmusat,  Mme.  de,  195 
Rennes,  42  note 

Revue  des  deux  Mondes,  241  ;  252,  255 
Revue  Mu^icale,  234 
Ricard,  General  de,  181 

,  Autour  des  Bonapartes,  181 

Richardiere,  Bourgeois  de  La,  113 
Richelieu,  Cardinal  de,  53  ;  96 

,  Due  de,  126,  130 

Rivarol,  180 
Riviere,  Due  de,  170 
Robert leDiable,  245  ;  273 

,  "  Alice  "  (role  in),  273 

Robespierre,  180 

*'  Roi-Soleil,  Le,"  103 

Roman  de  la  Rose,  4 

Rome,    53,   63-4,  65  ;    82,    86-7-8,  90 ; 

172 ;  188-9,  190, 191, 197 ;  202,  203, 

204,  208  ;  288,  293  ;  309 
Ronsard,  10,  11 
Ronzi  de  Begnis,  Mme.,  230 
Roscoe,  82 

,  Life  of  Leo  X.,  82 

Rose,  23 

•'  Rosina  "    (role  in    //   Barbiere  :    see 

Rossini),  230,  243 
Rosny,  Marquis  de.     [See  Sully,  Due 

de.) 

,  Castle  of,  171 

Rossetti,  W.  M.,  337-8 

,  Anthology  of  Americaft  Verse^  337 

Rossi,  Comtede,  237 
Rossini,  242 

,  //  Barbiere,  230  ;  243 

,  Semiramide,  234,  238,  242 

,  La  Gazza  Ladra,  242 

Rothschild,  Baron,  331 

Rouen,  46  ;  72 

Rubini,  241,  243,  250  ;  265 

Russia,  238  ;  310 

Rzewuska,  Evelina  [See  also   Hanska, 

Evelina),  300 


Saint-Amand,  Imbert  de,  9 

Saint- Andre,  Marshal,  12 

Saint- Antoine  (Church  of),  49 

,  Porte,  9 

,  Rue,  13 

Saint-Cloud,   150,  151,  152;  163;  189 

Saint- penis,  no 

Saint-Etienne,  96 

Saint-Evremond,  57  ;  100,  lOi,  104-5-6, 
108 

Saint- Germain,  9  ;  46  ;   171 

VAuxerrois,  49,  50 

Saint-Lary,  Roger  de.  [See  Belle- 
garde,  Due  de.) 

Saint-Laurent  (Church  of),  129 

Saint-Leu,  183 

Saint-Marc,  Rue  Neuve,  228 

Saint-Priest,  Vicomtesse  de,  173 

Saint-Roch  (Church  of),  165 

Saint-Simon,  52;  152 

Sainte-Beuve,  39,  41,  42  note,  46  ;  215 

,  Causeries  du  Lundi,  42  note 

Sainte-CroiXi  Rue,  185 

Sainte-Foy,  123,  126,  129 

Sainte- TVandru  (Abbey  of),  199,  200 

Saintes,  63 

Saints- Pires,  Rue  des^  102 

Salisbury,  140 

Saluzzo,  Villa  (Albaro,  Genoa),  294-5 

Sanf  Agostino  (Church  of),  94 

Salviati,  the,  19,  21,  26 

Sancy,  47  note 

Safi  Domingo,  183,  187,  188 

Sandwich,  Lady,  106 

Sanseverino,  23,  25  note,  36 

Sanson,  165 

Santa  Croce  (Church  of),  212 

Santi,  Giovanna,  59 

Santissimi  Apostoli  (Square  of  the),  202 

Sartines  (Police-officer),   118 

Savoy,  Louise  of,  2 

,  Princess  Margnret  of,  58-9 

,  Charles-Emmanuel,  Duke  of,  59, 

64-S 

,  Philiberta  of,  87 

marriage,  59 

,  Court  of,  59,  65 

Saxe,  Maurice  de,  223-227 

Saxony,  Frederick-Augustus,  Elector  of, 

223 
Sayers,  Tom,  332 
Scarron,  100,  loi  ;  114 
,  Madame.       {See      Maintenon, 

Madame  de.) 
Schroeder-Devrient,  243,  270 
Scotland,  69 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  195  ;  284 
Segati,  Marianna,  287 
Seine  (the  River),  226 


INDEX 


357 


Selden,  Camille  ("Mouche  "),  324,  325 

Senionville,  M.  de,  183 

Segovia^  64 

Servieu,  57 

Sevigne,  Marquis  de  (the  elder),  98 

,  Charles,  Marquis  de  (the  younger), 

98,  103 

' ,  Mme.  de,  103 

Seymour,  Henry,  135 
Shelley,  289,  294,  295 

,  Mrs.,  295 

Sicilies,  Ferdinand  I.,  King  of  the  Two, 
168 

,  Francis  I.,  King  of  the  Two,  167 

Siebenkees,  i8,  30,  31 
Siena,  92,  93  ;  210 

Sims,  Mr.   George  R.,    329   notet  338, 
339.  340,  342 

,  Referee,  The,  338,  339 

Sismondi,  211 

Sitches,  Joaquina  (Mme.  Garcia),  229 

Smart,  Sir  George,  240 

Smith,  E.  T.,  333  note,  335,  336,  337 

Soderini,  23 

SoissonSy  38;  216 

,  Comtesse  de,  142,  146.    {See  also 

Mancini,  Olympe.) 
Somaize,  97,  98,  104 
Sontag,  Henriette,  236-7  j  250  ;  255 
*' Son*    vergin    vezzosa^'    (Polacca  in  / 

Furitanii  see  Bellini),  246 
Sorel,  Agnes,  i  note 
Soult,  177 

Sourdis,  Mme.  de,  49 
Spain,  2  ;  42  ;  53,  59,  65  ;  70,  77  ;  187 

,  Elizabeth  of,  8 

,  Marie-Louise,  Queen  of,   145  note 

St.' Helena,  193  note,  197 

•5"/.  Honors,  Faubourg,  191 

St.  Louis,  335 

St.  Martin,  Forte,  342 

St.  Fetersburg,  251  ;  257  ;  308 

"St,  Polycarp's  Day,"  173,  174,  176 

St.  Sepulchre  (Church  of),  66 

Stael,  Madame  de,  2lo 

,  Corinne,  286 

Stanley,  Mrs.,  274 
Stendhal,  180;  211  j  284 
Stilpone,  92 

Stockholm,  162 ;  253  ;  265,  266,  268 
Stolberg-Gedern,  Louise  of,  Coun- 
tess of  Albany  (Louise  of  Albany),  198- 

212 

,  Princess  Caroline  of,  199 

,  Prince  Gustavus-Adolphus  of,  199 

Strasbourg,  154;  217,  218,  219,  220 

Strozzi,  Filippo,  85,  88-9 

Stuart,  Charles  Edward,  198-204, 

207-10.       (The    Young    Pretender  ; 

Prince     Charlie  ;      Bonnie      Prince 

Charlie.) 


Stuart,  House  of,  199,  208 

,  Henry  (York,  Cardinal),  199,  201, 

208 

,  Henrietta.    (^«  ORLfeANS,  Henri- 
ette d'.) 

characteristics,  141,  142,  149 

relics,  212 

Stupinigi,  194 

Sully,  Due  de,  42  note,  47,  48,  49,  50 

Sweden,  268 

,  Christina,  Queen  of,  102,  106 

,  Gustavus  (Gustav)  HL,  King  of, 

208;  253 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  327,  337- 
8,339 

,  Dolores,  329,  333-4,  340 

,  Dolorida,  339,  and  note 

,  Ilicet,  342-3 

,  Foents  and  Ballads,  340  note 

Symonds,  John  Addington,  82 


Tagliava,  Cardinal  Pietro,  82 
Taglioni,  Marie,  67  ;  246  ;  252-262 

,  Philip,  253-4 

Taillandier,  Saint-Rene,  207-8-9-10-I  l 
Tallemant  des  Reaux,  97 
Talleyrand,  89  ;  160 
7>w//<f  Quarter,  The,  216 

Precincts,  217 

Teneo,  M.  Martial,  232,  233 

Teoli,  Carlo,  86,  90 

Terrail,     Pierre    de.       {See     Bayard, 

Chevalier.) 
Texas,  331 
Thackeray  (W.  M.),  256 

,  Fendennis,  256 

Thalberg,  239 

Theatre  Fran^ais,  188;  217,  222.     (See 

also  Comidie-Fran^aise.) 
Theatre,  Her  Majesty's,  67,  70  j  272 
"  Theodore  Sisters,"  330 
Thiers,  176;  195 
Thomson,  John,  337-340,  342 
Tietjens,  249-50 
Times,  The,  73  ;  274-5 
Toledo,  Duchess  Leonora  of,  90-93 

,  Don  Pedro  di,  92 

Toulouse,  129;  174 

Tournelles,  Rue  des,  103,  104,  107 

Trelawney,  294-5 

Tresmes,  Due  de,  132 

Trischka,  261 

Trollope,  19,  22,  25,  35  ;  91 

Troubetzkoy,  Princesse  Mathilde,  260 

Tuileries,  the,  163;  171  j  226 

Turenne,  57 

Turin,  64  ;  193,  194 


i 


358 


INDEX 


Turquan,   Joseph,    179,    182,    187,    193 

note 
Tuscany,  Grand-Duchy  of,  23,  29,  33 
, Duchess  of,  31-2.     {See  also 

Capello,  Bianca.) 
,  -Duke  of,  22,  202,  204,  208. 

(See  also  Medici,  Francesco  de'.) 


U 


Uffizzi^  8  ;  211 
Ukraine^  298,  300,  302 


Valence    (Bishop    of).      {See    CosNAC, 

Daniel  de.) 
Valentinois,  Duchesse  de,  9,  li,  12,  15. 

(Diane  de  Poitiers.) 
Valliere,  Louise  de  La,  143,  147,  153 
Valois,  Marguerite  de  (Sister  of  Henry 

11.),  4,  7 
, (Queen  of  Henry  IV.), 

49 

,  Due  de,  46 

Vandam,  Albert,  7 1-2,  74;  259-60 

,  An  Englishman  m  Paris ^  259 

Varchi,  85,  88,  90,  92-3 
Vardes,  Marquis  de,  143-4,  146-7-8 
VarenneSf  154,  162,  163 
Varsovia,  72 
Vastapani,  Doctor,  194 
Vatel,  M.  Charles,  123-5,  ^^33 
Vatican,  the,  87 
Vaucouleurs,  124 

Vendee,  La,  166,  170,  172-17$,  178 
Vendomes,  the,  46 
Vefiice,    18,    19,    20,    21,    31,    32;    82; 

231  ;  248  ;  253  ;  280- 1,  282  nole,  287, 

290 
Verdzm,  217 

V^rilJ  dans  son  /our,  La,  54,  56-7,  61 
Veron,  320 
Versailles,   in;    127,    130,    134;    155, 

158,  159,  161,  199 


Vestris,  Gaetano,  117 

,  Mme.,  230 

Vieilleville,  11,  12,  14 

Vienna,  156  ;  254,  258  ;  272,  273  ;  306, 

307 
Vigee- Lebrun,  Mme.,  113 
VUla  Andrie,  303-4 
Villarceaux,  Marquis  de,  lOO,  lOl 
Villars,  Chevalier  de,  loi 

,  Mme.  de,  40 

Voisins,  Count  Gilbert  des,  259,  260 
Voltaire,  96,  108;  no,  116,  121  ;  129; 

225,  226,  227 
,  (Edipe,  225 


W 


Walkinshaw,  Charlotte,  208,  209 

Wall  Street  {New  York),  328,  332.     {See 

also  James  (or  Paul)  Barclay.) 
Wallerstein,  Prince,  75-6 
Warsaw,  70,  72 
Washington,  249 
Waterloo,  167  ;  196 
Watts-Phillips,  327 
Weill,  Alexander,  317-325 
Westvieath,  70 
Westminster  Bridge,  329 
Whitman,  Walt,  338 
Wierzchowna,  306,  309-10 
Wilde,  Lady  ("Speranza"),  279 


Yellow  Veil,  the,  92-3 
York,  Duke  of,  149 

,  Cardinal.     {See  Stuart,  Henry.] 

Yveteaux,  des,  100 
Yvetot,  100 


Zamet,  49,  50 

"  Zelaire  "  (role  in  Castor  et  Pollux),  120 

Zilioli,  Alessandro,  83,  84,  90 


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Georges. 

Great  Massacre,  The. 
Henri  db  Navakrb. 
H£l&nb  db  Chavbrny. 


Horoscope,  Thb. 

Leone-Leona. 

Louise  db  la  Valli6re.    (Double  volume.) 

Man  in  the   Iron  Mask,  The.     (Double 

volume.) 
MaItrb  Adam. 
Mouth  of  Hell,  The. 
Nanon.    (Double  volume.) 
Olympia. 
Pauline  ;  Pascal  Bruno  ;  and  Bontbkob. 

P^RE  LA   RuINE. 

Porte  Saint-Antoine,  Thb. 

Prince  of  Thieves,  The. 

Reminiscences  of  Antony,  The. 

St.  Quentin. 

Robin  Hood. 

Samuel  Gelb. 

Snowball  and  the  Sultanbtta,  Thb. 

Sylvandire. 

Taking  of  Calais,  Thb. 

Tales  of  the  Supernatural. 

Tales  of  Strange  Adventure. 

Taixs  of  Terror. 

Three  Musketeers,  The.  (Double  volume.) 

Tourney  of  the  Rub  St.  Antoine. 

Tragedy  of  Nantes,  The. 

Twenty  Years  After.    (Double   yolume.) 

WiLD-DucK  Shooter,  The. 

Wolf-Leader,  The. 


Fiction 


29 


Methuen's  Sixpenny  Bookg. 

Medium  %vo. 


Albanesi    (E.   Maria).     LOVE    AND 

LOUISA. 
I   KNOW  A  MAIDEN. 
THE  BLUNDER  OF  AN  INNOCENT. 
PETER  A  PARASITE. 
•THE   INVINCIBLE  AMELIA. 

Anstey  (F.).    A  BAYARD  OF   BENGAL. 
Austell  (J.).    PRIDE  AND  PREJUDICE. 
Bagot  (Richard).  A  ROMAN  MYSTERY. 
CASTING  OF  NETS. 
DONNA  DIANA. 

Balfour   (Andrew).     BY    STROKE    OF 
SWORD. 

Baring-Gould  (S.).    FURZE  BLOOM. 

CHEAP  JACK  ZITA. 

KITTY  ALONE. 

URITH. 

THE  BROOM   SQUIRE. 

IN  THE  ROAR  OF  THE  SEA. 

NOEMI. 

A  BOOK  OF  FAIRY  TALES.    Illustrated. 

LITTLE  TU'PENNY. 

WINEFRED. 

THE  FROBISHERS. 

THE  QUEEN   OF  LOVE. 

ARMINELL. 

BLADYS  OF   THE  STEWPONEY. 

CHRIS  OF  ALL  SORTS. 

Barr  (Robert).    JENNIE  BAXTER. 
IN  THE  MIDST  OF  ALARMS. 
THE  COUNTESS   TEKLA. 
THE  MUTABLE  MANY. 

Benson  (E.  F.).    DODO. 
THE  VINTAGE. 

Bronte  (Charlotte).    SHIRLEY. 

THE    HEART 


OF 


Brownell  (C.  L.). 
JAPAN. 

Burton  (J.  Bloundelle).    ACROSS    THE 
SALT  SEAS. 

Cafifyn  (Mrs.).    ANNE  MAULEVERER. 

Capes  (Bernard).    THE  GREAT  SKENE 
MYSTERY. 


k.).   a  flash  of 
summ; 
mrs.  keith's  crime. 


Clifford   (Mrs.  W. 
[ER. 


Corbett    (Julian).     A 

GREAT  WATERS. 


BUSINESS     IN 


Croker  (Mrs.  B.  M.).    ANGEL. 
A  STATE  SECRET. 
PEGGY  OF  THE  BARTONS. 
JOHANNA. 

Dante    (Alighieri).      THE    DIVINE 
COMEDY  (Gary). 

Doyle  (Sir  A.  Conan).     ROUND  THE 
RED  LAMP. 

Duncan     (Sara   Jeannette).      THOSE 
DELIGHTFUL  AMERICANS. 

Eliot    (George).    THE  MILL  ON  THE 
FLOSS. 


Findlater    (Jane    H.).     THE 
GRAVES  OF  BALGOWRIE. 


GREEN 

Gallon  (Tom).    RICKERBY'S  FOLLY. 

Gaskell  (Mrs.).    CRANFORD. 
MARY  BARTON. 
NORTH  AND  SOUTH. 

Gerard   (Dorothea).      HOLY    MATRI- 

MONY. 
THE  CONQUEST  OF  LONDON. 
MADE  OF  MONEY. 

Gissing  (G.).  THE  TOWN  TRAVELLER. 
THE  CROWN  OF  LIFE. 

Glanville    (Ernest).      THE    INCA'S 

TREASURE. 
THE  KLOOF  BRIDE. 

Gleig  (Charles).    BUNTER'S  CRUISE. 

Grimm     (The    Brothers).       GRIMM'S 
FAIRY  TALES. 

Hope  (Anthony).    A  MAN  OF  MARK. 

A  CHANGE  OF  AIR. 

THE    CHRONICLES    OF   COUNT 

ANTONIO. 
PHROSO. 
THE  l50LLY  DIALOGUES. 


Hornung  (E.  W.), 
NO  TALES. 


Hyne(C.J.C.> 

BU 


UCCANEER. 

rahan 
AVID. 


Ingraham  (J.  H.). 
DA  -- 


DEAD  MEN  TELL 
PRINCE  RUPERT  THE 
THE  THRONE  OF 


30 


Methuen  and  Company  Limited 

HUNCHBACK 


Le   Queux   (W.).     THE 

OF  WESTMINSTER, 
THE  CROOKED  WAY. 
THE  VALLEY  OF  THE  SHADOW. 


Levett-Yeats  (S.  K.). 

WAY. 
ORRAIN. 


THE  TRAITOR'S 


THE   TRUE   HIS- 
SHUA  DAVIDSON. 


Linton   (E.   L 
TORY  OF  ] 

Lyall  (Edna).    DERRICK  VAUGHAN 

Malet  (Lucas).    THE  CARISSIMA. 
A  COUNSEL  OF  PERFECTION. 


E.) 


MRS.    PETER 


Mann    (Mrs.    M 
HOWARD, 

A  LOST  ESTATE. 

THE  CEDAR  STAR. 

THE  PATTEN  EXPERIMENT. 

A  WINTER'S  TALE, 

Mapchmont   (A.  W.).     MISER  HOAD- 

LEY'S  SECRET. 
A  MOMENT'S  ERROR. 

Mapryat  (Captain).    PETER  SIMPLE. 
JACOB  FAITHFUL. 

Mapch  (Richapd).  A  METAMORPHOSIS. 
THE  TWICKENHAM  PEERAGE. 
THE  GODDESS. 
THE  JOSS. 

Mason  (A.  E.  W.).    CLEMENTINA. 

Matlieps  (Helen).    HONEY. 
GRIFF  OF  GRIFFITHSCOURT. 
SAM'S  SWEETHEART. 
THE  FERRYMAN. 

Meade  (Mrs.  L.  T.).    DRIFT. 

Millep  (Esthep).    LIVING  LIES. 

Mitfopd  (Beptram).  THE  SIGN  OF  THE 
SPIDER- 


THE  ALIEN. 
THE    HOLE 


IN 


Montp6sop  (F.  F.). 

Moppison   (Apthup). 
THE  WALL. 


Nes        (E.).    THE  RED  HOUSE. 

NoPi  ^  (W.  E.).    HIS  GRACE,      ^ 
GILES  INGILBY. 
THE  CREDIT  OF  THE  COUNTY. 
LORD  LEONARD  THE  LUCKLESS. 
MATTHEW  AUSTEN. 
CLARISSA  FURIOSA. 

OUphant  (Mps.).    THE  LADY'S  WALK. 
SIR  ROBERT'S  FORTUNE. 


MASTER  OF  MEN. 
THE  POMP  OF 


THE  PRODIGALS. 

THE  TWO  MARYS. 

Oppenheim  (E.  P.). 

Papkep  (Sip  Gilbept). 
THE  LAVILETTES. 
WHEN  VALMOND  CAME  TO  PONTIAC. 
THE  TRAIL  OF  THE  SWORD. 

Pembepton   (Max).    THE   FOOTSTEPS 

OF  A  THRONE. 
I  CROWN  THEE  KING. 
Phillpotts  (Eden).    THE  HUMAN  BOY. 
CHILDREN  OF  THE  MIST. 
THE  POACHER'S  WIFE. 
THE  RIVER.' 

•Q'    (A.    T.    Quillep  Couch).      THE 
WHITE  WOLF, 

Ridge  (W.  Pett).  A  SON  OF  THE  STATE. 

LOST  PROPERTY. 

GEORGE  and  THE  GENERAL. 

A  BREAKER  OF  LAWS. 

ERB. 

Russell  (W.  Clapk).    ABANDONED. 

A  MARRIAGE  AT  SEA. 

MY  DANISH  SWEETHEART. 

HIS  ISLAND  PRINCESS. 


Sergeant  (Adeline). 

BEECHWOOD. 


THE  MASTER  OF 


BALBARA'S  MONEY. 
THE  YELLOW  DIAMOND, 
THE  LOVE  THAT  OVERCAME. 

Sidgwick   (MPS.   Alfred).    THE    KINS- 
MAN. 

Surtees  (R.  S.).    HANDLEY  CROSS. 
MR.  SPONGE'S  SPORTING  TOUR. 
ASK  MAMMA. 

Walford  (Mrs.  L.  B.).    MR.  SMITH. 

COUSINS. 

THE  BABY'S  GRANDMOTHER. 

TROUBLESOME  DAUGHTERS. 

Wallace  (General  Lew).    BEN-HUR. 

THE  FAIR  GOD. 

Watson  (H.  B.  Marriott).    THE  ADVEN- 
TURERS. 
CAPTAIN  FORTUNE. 
Weekes  (A.  B.).    PRISONERS  OF  WAR. 
Wells  (H.  G.).    THE  SEA  LADY. 

Whitby  (Beatpiee).    THE  RESULT  OF 

AN  ACCIDENT. 


White  (Percy). 
GRIM. 


A   PASSIONATE   PIL- 
Williamson  (Mps.  C.  N.).    PAPA. 


PRINTED  BY 

WILLIAM  CLOAVES  AND  SONS,  LIMITBD| 

LONDON  AND   BECCLES. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 

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